SOCAR, Korea's largest car-sharing company, provides car-sharing services through a smartphone app. The 'SOCAR-KTX Bundle Reservation Service' is a service that allows users to book both KTX (Korea's high-speed rail) and car-sharing services together.
This project was guided by Yohan Joo, a Data PM at SOCAR who served as a mentor for the Seoul Economic Promotion Agency's Product Management bootcamp. We worked on improving the existing SOCAR-KTX service specifically targeting the 40-50 age demographic.
Background
Goal
Streamline bookings by minimizing app switching
My role
Project leader on a team of five
Presenter
Duration
2023.06.-2023.08
Understanding the Problem
Gaps between SOCAR's Goals and User Experience
“Creating a seamless journey experience, from pre-departure to post-arrival.”
Despite SOCAR's mission, the service only covered train station to SOCAR zone connections. Users still needed multiple apps to complete their entire journey.
I conducted end-to-end user journey mapping, and identified potential pain points that could occur during journeys not covered by SOCAR-KTX.
Understanding the Users’ Pain points
Setting Goals
Three Hypotheses: Ideas for addressing pain points
Due to limited domain expertise in driving experiences and scarce user data, I opted for rapid prototyping based on hypotheses and direct user validation.
Ideation
Brainstorming
Conducted a six-round ideation sprint to generate diverse solution concepts.
Created quick hand sketches within 30 minutes to externalize the selected concept through low-fidelity wireframes.
Design solution determination
Marked positive aspects and add new ideas on sticky notes.
Voted for the most goal-aligned solutions.
Storyboard
Sketched a storyboard depicting user interactions with the enhanced SOCAR-KTX service.
Solution to Problem: Pretotype
Recommended Routes
: A train station search service based on user's start and end points.Full route UI
: At-a-glance complete journey visualization.One-way service recommendation
: Integrated SOCAR pickup service for first-mile station access, enabling travel to
the train station through SOCAR's car-sharing service without needing to use
other apps.
Solution Validation
Expert Review: SOCAR data PM's solution assessment
Target audience needs narrowing.
The problem statement and identified user pain points need to be substantiated with quantitative metrics and data-driven insights.
User Interview
Conducting user interviews
I conducted user interviews to validate hypotheses and gather solution feedback.
Research Subjects: 5 SOCAR-KTX users
Method: 1:1 remote interviews
Duration: 30 min/person
Opinion prioritization
Total Feedback Items: 49 unique opinions
Weighting Distribution:
Goal alignment: 50%
User needs: 30%
Expert feedback: 20%
Organized into 5 priority levels based on weighted scores
Over 25% of opinions were marked as 'Does Not Matter'. To understand this pattern, I analyzed responses by age groups. This revealed a significant difference in preferences between participants in their 20s and 50s.
Key Findings: Age-based opinion gap
20s: Car options & price > convenience
→ 20s accept inconvenience for savings50s: Convenience > price
→ 50s pay premium for convenience
This reveals a clear generational divide in price-convenience trade-off decisions, suggesting the need for age-specific service strategies.
Through expert feedback and user interviews, I discovered issues in my project. During our 5-day rapid sprint, I lacked sufficient research time and failed to specifically define target audience and pain points.
Identifying Project Issues
Different age groups = Different needs
→ Difficult to create one-size-fits-all solution
Addressing the Problems
Target Audience Refinement: 40s-50s age group
I refined the target audience to users in their 40s and 50s to boost SOCAR-KTX usage rates. This group demonstrates higher usage metrics - both in time and distance - than users in their 20-30s. This decision also matches the aging trend in SoCar's membership.
Second User Interview: Pain point analysis
I interviewed 7 users aged 40-50 to identify their pain points in SOCAR-KTX booking process.
72% of users found the booking flow complex. App-switching for travel information was their main complaint.
Solutions for 50s
Interaction Design
IA: Building user flow
As the service scope has expanded beyond the existing SOCAR-KTX service,I developed a comprehensive IA. The new design features a step-by-step booking flow for simplified UX.
Interactive Wireframe design
Final Solutions
1
Location-based Search
Train Route Recommendations
2
Walking Time
Display
3
Route Verification
4
5
Pre-departure
One-way Service Push Notifications
Proposal to SOCAR
Developer’s Feedback: Define detailed criteria
Verify product implementation feasibility
Review logic flow
Goals
Define detailed function criteria per stage.
Plan for edge cases: GPS off, no nearby stations.
Key insights
Data PM Feedback: Need more specific target definition
Deliver project proposal
Collect final review
Goals
Detailed target segmentation needed for practical application.
Diverse validation approaches required through multiple testing methods.
Key Insights
Reflection
My journey into practical UX design taught me more than I expected. I realized how crucial it is to really know target users - not just on paper, but understanding their real needs and behaviors through solid research. Despite initial challenges from insufficient research, these obstacles became learning opportunities that showed me how important it is to truly get into the users' shoes.
Looking back, this hands-on experience taught me that great user-centered design isn't just about following a process - it's about bringing together thorough research, genuine understanding of users, and data-driven decision. It's like putting together a puzzle where every piece - research, user insights, and data - has to fit perfectly to create something that truly works for the people who'll use it.