DriveMy - Service Design · Logistics & Ops
SAVING A CLIENT FROM
A $200K MISTAKE
A client came to me ready to burn massive capital launching a high-risk, on-
demand chauffeur service. Instead of blindly building what they asked for, I used
deep UX research to stress-test their assumptions. By exposing massive, hidden
flaws in how users actually behaved, I proved the business model was
fundamentally broken; saving the client 100% of their launch capital and pivoting
them toward a strategy that would actually work.
Role
Product Designer & Strategist
Tools & Skills
UX Research, Mobile UI Design,
Brand Identity, Business Model
Analysis
Collaborators
Client (Founder)
Year
2021
5 min read
Overview
Hired to design an app, but I
stayed to question the business
What started as a straightforward booking-
app brief turned into a strategic intervention
that reshaped the entire product direction.
I was originally brought on to lead the end-to-end design for DriveMy; a mobile
service where car owners could hire a driver to chauffeur them around in their
own vehicles. The original plan was straightforward: design a slick, low-friction
booking app. But my role quickly shifted from production designer to business
strategist.
When I ran deep user research on our target audience, I hit a massive roadblock.
I discovered that the client's absolute core assumption - that people would use
this service to get home safely after drinking - was fundamentally incompatible
with how people actually behave when they're out.
By exposing this flaw before they spent a dime on development, I guided the
client through a massive strategic pivot, saving them from an incredibly costly
and doomed market entry.
DriveMy - Schedule a ride
Project Goals
01
Design the entire backend and frontend
logistical puzzle; from the exact second
a user requests a driver, through
dispatching, all the way to the final trip
confirmation.
02
Run targeted user research to uncover
the real emotional and behavioral
reasons someone would hire a personal
chauffeur, rather than just guessing.
03
Handing your car keys to a total
stranger creates massive anxiety. I
needed to build a transparent, premium
visual language that makes users feel
completely safe and secure every step
of the way.
The Challenge
Build a high-trust experience; and
prove people would actually use it
The hard part wasn't the interface. It was validating whether the
founder's core scenario was a real business or a costly assumption.
The client's whole vision hinged on one specific scenario: someone drives their
own car to a bar or an event, has a few drinks, and needs a safe way to get both
themselves and their car back home.
The challenge was two-fold. First, I had to design a premium, incredibly high-trust
mobile experience that made handing your keys to a stranger feel safe. Second
- and more importantly - I had to run the research to prove whether this
behavior was actually a solid foundation for a business, or a massive financial
risk.
Business Need
Build a highly competitive, bulletproof product that gives the
client a safe, strategic entry point into the crowded on-demand
transit market.
User Need
Users need a lightning-fast, dead-simple booking flow that
takes zero effort to use in the moment and makes the logistics
perfectly transparent so they never have to guess where their
driver is.
Discovery Phase
Mining the founder's hands-on
service for a digital blueprint
Before the app existed, the founder ran this service by
hand — so those real journeys became my design blueprint.
I started by running deep-dive interviews with the founder to pull the core vision
out of their head and understand how they wanted DriveMy to work in its early
stages. Before building the app, the founder had been providing this exact
service.
Digging into those journeys gave me the exact blueprint I needed to design a
digital experience that felt like a premium, high-end chauffeur service from day
one. Based on that research, we mapped out three core pillars to anchor our first
functional prototype.
A
Intake
I streamlined the booking request into a
clean, minimalist layout. The goal was
to let users input premium requests -
like specific vehicle handling or trip
preferences - without making the
screen feel cluttered or overwhelming.
B
Logistics
I digitized the backend logistics. In the
early days, the founder would manually
pair with clients over text. I turned that
chaotic process into an automated
matching system that connected
professional drivers with specific trip
requests instantly.
C
Confirmation
I built high-trust status updates. When
you're letting someone else drive your
car, peace of mind is everything, so I
made sure the interface kept users
updated at every single stage of the
journey.
Problem To Solve
On the surface, the problem looked simple: people needed an easy way to hire a driver
for their own car. The hidden, much more dangerous problem was that the business
model itself was completely unproven; the core assumption about why people would
actually use this service had never been tested, creating a massive financial risk for the
company.
Research · Gathering Insights
The keys weren't the fear,
everyday habits were the killer
When I interviewed real car owners, the
assumed fear of handing over keys never
showed up; basic logistics and habit did.
To see if this idea actually had legs, I ran a deep market analysis and interviewed
the client's exact target audience; car owners. I also looked at high-end concierge
services and rideshare apps to figure out what these users normally expect when
they book a ride.
My deep dive into user behavior revealed something surprising: handing over the
keys wasn't what people were afraid of. Instead, the real killers of the business
model were basic human habits and everyday logistics. Three massive behavioral
roadblocks emerged.
COMPETITOR SCREENSHOT - Dryver
01
The Logistical Dead-End
Users told me flat-out that if they plan
on having a few drinks at an event, their
default behavior is to leave their car at
home in the first place. The logistical
headache of scheduling a chauffeur to
meet them at a bar completely
outweighed the luxury of having their
own car there.
02
Competitive Dominance
Uber and Lyft completely dominate the
'heading home after a night out'
scenario because they require
absolutely zero pre-planning. Hiring a
personal driver meant users had to
plan vehicle drop-offs and strict
scheduling in advance; people found
that way too restrictive when trying to
enjoy an evening.
03
The High-Risk Assumption
The client's entire business model relied
on a rare 'planning mistake'; someone
accidentally drinking too much when
they hadn't planned to. You can't build a
sustainable, venture-backed business
by hoping your users fail to plan ahead;
you have to design for predictable,
recurring human habits.
How Might We
How might we use familiar, straightforward mobile layouts to make booking
a personal driver feel completely effortless, while running the user research
needed to prove people will actually use this service in the real world?
User Testing · Testing the Solution
The biggest fixes had nothing to do with the UI
I built and tested the complete mobile experience from the ground up — and
the sharpest insights came from how people behaved, not where buttons sat.
Early on, the prototype tests focused on typical usability details like button
placement and menu layouts. But as we got deeper into testing, the most critical
insights had nothing to do with the UI itself; they were about how users actually
behaved and navigated when trying to book a ride.
Through those user tests, I uncovered two major friction points in the interface
and fixed them immediately.
Driver Intaking IA
Insight
Watching users go through a tedious, multi-page
intake process just to pick a driver showed us
how distracting and slow the initial flow was.
Action
We axed the long forms and introduced a
'Favorite Drivers' feature. This lets users save
drivers they already trust, allowing them to
bypass the long intake questions and book a
repeat trip in seconds.
Navigational Discoverability
Insight
Users couldn't find their primary account actions
inside the old, clunky side menu. They kept
opening the panel and hitting a total dead end,
unsure of where to click next.
Action
We completely restructured the menu hierarchy.
We brought the most frequent user actions -
like profiles and 'Favorite Drivers' - right to the
top, making the entire navigation path feel
instant and obvious.
OPEN MENU - Version 1
OPEN MENU - Version 2
Impact · The Results
The real deliverable was a $200K
mistake that never happened
I shipped a complete brand system and mobile flow; but
the win was protecting the client from a doomed launch.
While I successfully built a beautiful, component-based mobile layout and a
complete brand system, the real victory of this project was protecting the
business from a massive financial mistake. By presenting my research directly to
the client, I proved that their core business concept simply didn't match real-
world human habits.
Realizing the 'safe ride home' premise was broken, the client halted production,
saving themselves from burning a fortune on a doomed launch. Ultimately, I
delivered premium design execution while simultaneously acting as a strategic
consultant who protected the company's bottom line.
$200K
Capital Saved
Avoided on the launch of a high-risk
business model that research proved
was broken.
0 → 1
Brand & Mobile Flow
A complete brand system and mobile
flow, successfully delivered and
validated.
Pivot
Successful Client Pivot
A full strategic redirection, directly
influenced by the research findings.
What I Learned From This Project
Three principles I carried out of DriveMy
01
Designer as business partner
In on-demand services, user experience is directly tied to business viability. Spending
weeks designing a flawless, frictionless booking flow is completely useless if the
underlying human behavior you're designing for is fundamentally flawed from the start.
02
Validate intentions, not just buttons
User testing needs to look past basic interface usability. It shouldn't just answer, 'Can a
user physically finish this booking flow?' Instead, it has to answer a much harder
question about validity: 'Will they actually want to use this service when they're out in
the real world?'
03
Navigating the "friction" tension
Balancing day-to-day layout design with macro-level business validation takes constant
strategic alignment. This project taught me that a product designer's greatest impact
isn't always pushing pixels; sometimes, it's the deep research that steps in and stops a
company from launching the wrong product.
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