Background

I was a UX Research intern at Lyft during summer 2019, during which I completed two projects on their Marketplace Experience team.

The Marketplace Experiences team at Lyft is the incubator for new ideas for the Lyft marketplace, which was primarily focused on existing and future shared rides offerings while I was there.

Due to the proprietary nature of this work, I will only discuss my projects at a very high level.

Process

My first project was to explore ways to highlight the impact of taking a Shared Saver ride. I approached this research question through a combination of ride-alongs with participants, interviews about rider priorities, and feedback on ideas our team was exploring. I worked with a PM, designer, and data scientist to complete this research across two different markets, the Bay Area and New York City.

My second project was to more broadly identify new directions for Lyft’s portfolio of shared rides. Working closely with a PM and a designer on this project, I completed the initial phase of the project in four weeks. We started by drawing inspiration from other industries to generate ideas and looked at the literature from decision making and choice theory to inform our initial hypotheses. We then completed two rounds of rapid-fire research, the first with intercepts off the streets of SF and the second with in-depth interviews, to get feedback on our direction.

Outcome

My internship ended with three presentations on my work to different audiences: other interns, the Marketplace Experience team, and the Design+ Leadership team. While definitely more work than doing just one presentation, it provided an opportunity to experiment with presentation style and fidelity to work on my communication skills!

Length:
12 weeks

Tools:
Respondent.io

Skills & Methods:
In-depth Interviews
Concept Testing
Secondary Research
Intercepts
Analogous Inspiration
Contextual Inquiry