In Why Do Hyperlocal Apps Have So Much Location Friction?, I described many friction hotspots while entering and editing locations in hyperlocal apps like
- Ola, Rapido, Uber (Rideshare)
- Pizza Hut, Swiggy (Food delivery)
- Dunzo, Swiggy Genie (Runner)
Many of these apps have excellent UX. I found it hard to believe that they’d have bungled just the location functionality.
They hadn’t. Upon further research, I learned that there’s a long list of technical issues that impeded GPS / hyperlocal apps from resolving location smoothly e.g. GPS technology limitations, unilateral renaming of neighborhoods like Google, and so on.
I also discovered that some of these apps had innovated on their own and built additional features to overcome the challenges. For example:
- Chatbox in Uber
- Flashlight in Uber
- Movable Pin in Swiggy
- Voice Directions in Swiggy
It’s as though engineers and UX designers in these companies gave up on location technology owners resolving these fundamental problems, and decided to take things into their hands and find ways to nonetheless improve their users’ UX.
This reminds me of the old saying about how you can play a good hand despite having bad cards.
It’s not about the cards you’re dealt but how you play the hand. – Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture.
The fundamental problems with geoloc technology is the cards these apps were dealt. Innovative features built by these apps is how they play the hand.
Let me do a deep dive of these features.
Chatbox on Uber and Rapido apps. As soon as I get a booking confirmation for the taxi, I can see a chatbox on the main screen. I enter my pickup location on the chatbox. That tells the driver where exactly he needs to come. Ever since I started using this feature, I’ve never had to talk to the driver – all of them have reached the pickup location on their own. Chatbox on rideshare apps is one of the most innovative features in consumer apps in recent times. In the spirit of an old German proverb, wish rideshare apps save my standard entry so that I don’t have to type it everytime (see footnote 1).
Flashlight on Uber app. This is another great feature. At nightime, it’s hard to make out the license plate number of the cab. The app provides a flashlight to alleviate this friction hotspot. I just tap the flashlight button and the display of my phone glows in a particular color that the driver can recognize from a distance and reach my location easily. (Pet peeve: In the latest version of the Uber app, the flashlight button is buried below the main screen – I wish Uber restores it to the main screen where it’s more visible).
(A few years ago, Uber acquired Nokia Maps for $3B many years ago. Apparently, Nokia Maps handled location and lanes better than Google Maps. Not sure what happened to that acquisition – I still see Google Maps on the Uber app.)
Movable Pin on Swiggy app. Once you enter the address, the app places a pin. If it’s not at the right spot, you can move the pin to the exact place. I’m not able to figure out the exact location on a tiny map on smartphone screen and am never sure if I’ve moved the pin to the right place, so I haven’t used this feature. But I’ve seen others use it successfully. (Uber and the other rideshare apps also support this feature.)
Voice Directions on Swiggy app. While delivery agents are literate in the local language, they may not be able to read English. This new feature lets customers record a voice message, which can be easily understood by delivery agents.
To paraphrase the above saying about cards and hand to the current context:
It’s not about the geoloc API you’re served but how you build your app on top of it.
Well played Uber, Swiggy, et al! (see footnote 2)
While these features definitely help overcome location-related friction hotspots, there’s still a major friction in entering the address. Ideally, I’d like to type my address the normal way and let the app parse it however it understands the various elements and populate the corresponding fields of its address entry screen.
With AI, this shouldn’t be too hard. In the last two years GenAI has fulfilled many of my long-pending wishes (e.g. MINER360). Hope it fulfils one more and eliminates location friction once and for all.
That said, all location issues may not be bugs.
I was at a mall and wanted to book a Uber taxi back home. Normally, the two exits of the mall are terribly busy so I walked about a hundred feet ahead to a location with less traffic. When I fired up my Uber app, it correctly resolved my location to where I was standing but then automatically moved the pin back to the nearest exit. This makes sense on the (now defunct) Uber Share pooling option where the cab is already traveling on a certain route and it helps to get the rider to a point on the way. But, in the normal Uber Go or Uber Sedan modes where there’s only one passenger per taxi, I don’t know why Uber would want to decline to pickup the sole passenger from wherever s/he wants, but I still have a sneaking suspicion that the app’s behavior here is intentional.
FOOTNOTE(S):
- The old German proverb “Waehrend des Essens kommt das Appetit” means “the appetite grows as you eat”.
- These are only the innovative features to reduce location-related friction. PayTM and other apps have built many other innovative features to overcome friction in other areas e.g. (i) SoundBox that speaks out receipt of payment in stores and thereby obviates the need for the crazy busy shopkeeper to look up his phone while serving customers (ii) PayTM Assist overlay on top of the original screen of the PayTM payment app that automatically detects the OTP from the incoming SMS message and enters it into the required field on the ghastly 2FA form of the issuer bank.