Simplify the gamification further (carpool)

Question

I am building a carpool app for India. And the app needs to work on a point (km) system. Initially I thought that working on a system that is based on points will be good enough until I was advised to use kms instead. So now I am using kms for points.

If you drive people around you earn kms, if you ride with someone, you spend kms.

If you round robin your car, the kms rotate within the system. No body looses no body gains at the end of 2 days (assuming only 2 people carpool).

If you only only ride, eventually you will need to buy kms from the system.

If you only drive people around, you will need to redeem kms in exchange for gifts, coupons and cash.

Now this is my home screen, the question is when you look for the very first time, is the above clear enough ?

Notice that when I hit Driving Today, the action bar and button below changes to earn and Offer Ride.

Change made after feedback

Answer 1

The main selling point of the application is the idea. You need to convince your users to this idea, and to do so, you cannot leave them with the bare interface. Instead, you need to provide a proper onboarding - but focused on the idea, not interface.

In your mockup, I can see parts of it, but these refer to the features only - I mean this part of it, where I believe these are visual cues you wanted to present to your users:

Before user lands on this screen, however, s/he needs to see an explanation what application is about. You can go through a lot of onboarding examples on UX Archive - hope these will be helpful for you.

Regarding the interface you presented - I think it could be improved in several ways:

• Switch to user language - try to use different wording, especially avoid terms like "balance" and "spend". Like "Free kilometers to ride" and "Distance to work".

• Present multiple values expressed in the same unit as user would read them (at least when there is relation between them). I mean (available) 100|19 (to spend) is no good, it would be better to use 19|100, as it can be read as "Use 19 out of 100 kilometers"; you can switch to "19 out of 100" completely as well.

• Provide units everywhere to avoid confusion (19|100 km)

• Streamline processes - start the experience with the application from simple selection expressed with two buttons: [I want to give a ride to someone] and [I need a ride] and then let them choose starting/ending locations, dates and times.