Lyft started by providing peer-to-peer ridesharing and has since been working toward its mission to provide accessible transportation options for all. In 2018, Lyft launched bikes, scooters and transit integration in several markets, including Santa Monica, Denver, D.C. and others. Additionally, in February of this year, Lyft launched Shared Saver in San Jose and Denver. With the redesign of its rider app, Lyft improved shared rides, integrated directly with cities and transit agencies, and simplified riders' overall experience.

With the redesign of our passenger app, our primary goal was to make booking a ride as simple and fast as possible – something you can do out of the corner of your eye. This north star informed all the interaction and navigation decisions we made. We reduced the process of requesting a ride to only take three taps (Add a destination > choose a car type > request). Through understanding when/where our users are, we provide smart destination shortcuts to bypass these steps to make getting a car even faster. With our riders in mind, our secondary goal was to design a scalable UI framework that could accommodate additional ride types (bikes, scooters, transit integration) as Lyft offered additional transportation options. Reachability was a focal design decision across our flow, we brought all important interactions and content to the bottom of the device screen. This makes moving through the app easy on your thumbs, especially while holding a device with one hand. We were incredibly picky about what content was most important to highlight on each screen in our user experience. The idea was "one key thought per screen," and we emphasized what the user should pay attention to through bold headlines. We placed secondary content only a swipe/tap away by utilizing an expanding panel to hold more information/actions in one accessible area. We also wanted to make sure our interaction and navigation were just as seamless for visually impaired users. We made sure people were able to book and take rides by integrating screen reader support and using accessibility best practices when labeling our UIs. Through custom internal design tools, we've built out algorithms to ensure accessibility and legibility in our colors and typography. We programmatically generate our UI color palettes to be WCAG compliant while still preserving the vibrancy of our brand pinks and purples. We developed a tool to determine minimum type sizes for typical viewing angles for both our passengers and drivers. We employ Android TalkBack in all our components to make sure our experience is usable by everyone. Additionally, we use custom Google Maps styling throughout our app. This helps to emphasize the landmarks that are important to our passengers (transit, POI's, buildings), so they can be picked up easier. It also helps show off Lyft's design system colors for more Brand impact and cohesion with our UI. We use custom map markers to show cars, branded events, pickup, and venue areas, and draw route lines on top of the map to enhance the ride experience.