UX Case Study : The Paris Vélib’ Mobile App, a Bicycle Renting User Experience

8 min readDec 2, 2020

As an autodidact UX Designer Junior, I wanted to understand and use concretely the different UX methodologies and steps. To do so, I decided to pick an existing app and redesigning it from user research to prototyping in order to learn by doing.

This case study is born from the observation that a lot of Vélib’ users where complaining about the renting service. I decided to look into how the mobile app could answer some of these difficulties by designing a new user experience.

TL ; DR

Project duration: From August 2020 to September 2020 (from user research to final prototype)
Goal: Redesigning the current mobile app in order to improve user experience
Methodology: Quantitative and qualitative
Design thought for the Android version of the app

Outcome Highlights :

4 concepts, several MVP and 1 interactive final prototype were generated;
I gathered feedback from 7 interviews, 50 survey respondents and 3 user tests;
The final design answers the 3 main difficulties encountered by users (Knowing when a bike isn’t working before taking it, Being able to see the actual number of bikes available, Facilitate navigation for first users)

Design Thinking Process:

1. Empathize

I started this research by checking what other city biking rental services were proposing. I reviewed the mobile app of 5 different cities:

Cycl’lille : city bike rental in Lille, France
Marseille Le Velo : city bike rental in Marseille, France
Velo V officiel : city bike rental in Lyon, France
City bike NY : city bike rental in New York, USA
Cycle hire: city bike rental in London, UK

I found interesting features such as :

Numbers of bike and parking available for each stations (Marseille)
Possibility to evaluate the bike (Lyon)
Access favorites directly from the map (NY)
Challenges to accomplish : km, renting a bike five days in a row etc… (Londres)
Itineraries with several possibilities : easy, touristic… (Londres)
Report an abandoned bike through a picture (Londres)

And missing features such as :

Only 3 possibilities : map, stations and favorites (Lille)
Not possible to subscribe on the app (Londres et Marseille)

After better understanding what others were doing, I decided to observe a Velib station in the center of Paris to become more aware of how people were using the service. The main observation are :

Very few people are using the terminal
Most of the people are checking the bike before taking it
I observed many uppset or annoyed people who couldn’t find a bike in good condition or a bike at all

Then, I conducted 7 users’ interviews. The interviewees were recruited to fit respect a representative panel including age, service using frequency and mobile apps use. They were asked questions and had to simulate some tasks on the vélib app and other city app (Lyon, Lille, Marseille, London, NY) These interviews helped me understand that:

There were three main types of frequency users: very frequent, frequent and occasional users
They all wanted to have a smooth and quick experience with quality service responses through the mobile app
They found the Vélib service very useful globally
They generally used the app mainly to check the number of velib available at a given station
They were disappointed by the damaged bikes and the lack of bikes availability update
Often, they had their own bicycle and used Vélib as a plan B
There are only electric velib users and only mechanics ones
People unfamiliar with the mobile app had trouble finding some features (itinerary, — favorite)
The Velib mobile app seemed to be better appreciated than other cities (Lyon, Lille, Marseille, London, NY)

As the sanitary context was making it more difficult to reach out to users face to face and in order to complete the interviews and better understand user experience, I made a survey and received about 50 answers.

The survey helped me to confirm difficulties and to use patterns that I learned from interviews. It also allowed me to reach tourists and occasionally users more easily.

The survey showed most users were very frequent ones; the vast majority found the app easy to use and two main issues seemed to be highlighted: app updates and defective bikes.

Finally, I used about 30 comments on Google play and Apple store to confirm my results and get more outcomes on the mobile app gaps and strengths.

2. Define

Following this research, I was able to describe the main issues encountered by the users:

Not knowing when a bike wasn’t working before taking it
Not being able to see the actual number of bikes available (regular app update)
Facilitating navigation for first users (actually too long)

3. Ideate

With the data, I used tools such as experience maps and personas to help me better understand user profiles and experiences in order to adapt the app features and services.

Personas: 3 types of users emerged from the interviews and the survey respondents: frequent, occasional and touristic users.

For instance, Kevin is an occasional user who wants a cheap and easy way to commute to the city. He is young and wants to enjoy life with friends.

Then I decided to use an Empathy journey map for each one of my personas in order to better understand their journey and the difficulties encountered.

It allowed me to understand where exactly, for each persona, the product use wasn’t satisfactory and how it could be improved.

It resulted in, I categorised 4 types of solutions :

Using a bike (choosing, booking, updating, bike condition)
Favourites (renam, icons on the map, itinerary) I also added the possibility to make a station a favourite as this feature disappeared with the last Android update
Create an account (shortened from 8 pages to 4 and easy payment)
Report an issue (technical problem on the bike or difficulty to put it back)

4. Prototype :

As finalizing the user flow and MVP, I realized some of the features identified through the persona and experience map wasn’t effectively needed such as:

- Cancel during the ride

- Access favourites in 2 clicks

- Show the nearest Vélib station in a particular colour on the map

- Add a feature “Report an issue” in the front page

Following these, I made a prioritization map before prototyping and decided what was urgent, easy wins, or better to do later.

Then I was ready to start prototyping MVP:

Once the MVP prototypes were done, I created a user flow and a wireframing in order to better understand how the user would navigate and to prepare the user testing phase.

5. Test

I conducted 3 user tests through video-conferences asking them to carry out some tasks using the MVP and to follow the 4 categories from the ideation phase. For instance, they had to :

Choose and book a bike
Rename favourites and start en itinerary from it
Create an account as first user
Report an issue (technical problem on the bike or difficulty to put it back)

They were describing their feelings and every moves they made to complete the tasks. The main goal was to understand if they could complete the tasks in a intuitive and easy way and if they did well understand each button and icon.

6. Iterate

After running user tests, I understood better how users navigated through the new features, realizing at several times that it wasn’t as expected. Thus, I made some changes.

Some of them were needed in order to clarify buttons such as the itinerary and the position. Others, to add connexion through Facebook while creating an account or report an issue during the ride :
Favourites: The users weren’t using the menu to get to their list as expected but directly clicked on the heart on the map. I added the possibility of directly rename or delete favourites while clicking on the map.
Itinerary: I added several itinerary options such as secured, fast or recommended routes and how steep they were.
Bike information: I initially thought that users would click on the map, however they click on the bike button instead and checked the number of bikes available at each nearby stations. Thus, I added next to the bike number, the possibility to click in order to get more info and book a bike at each station on the map:
Confirmation pages: I added a confirmation page after booking a bike, after creating an account and after reporting the bike didn’t properly get back at the station:
Bike evaluation: I added a home page with the possibility to evaluate the last ride if wasn’t done previously:
Reporting an issue: I added the possibility to specify the type of issues encountered and replaced the form with boxes to tick. I also removed the QR code as the bike identification was already given: