Hello from Lyft Design
With this first post, Lyft Design is starting a new tradition of sharing our learnings and starting a dialogue with the broader community. We feel very lucky to do what we do and we’re eager to share it with you. We want to hear from you!
At Lyft we’re working on some juicy problems like designing for behavior change, transforming transportation, and shaping cities. We encounter situations on a regular basis where there is no precedent and no right answer. By sharing some of these topics with you, we hope we can learn from each other and better advance the industry.
But first, I want to introduce the team.
Who we are
We’re a mighty group of folks covering four functions: design, research, operations and writing. Most designers on the team do both interaction and visual design, and own their work end to end. In addition, we also have a talented group of system designers, illustrators, 3D designers and animators. We’re just under 100 folks (and 8 dogs), but it remarkably still feels like a family. As we’ve grown, we’ve built touch points to keep us in sync like our Weekly (Visual) Standup and our Design All Hands. But honestly, it’s the team lunches, midday coffees and group efforts that really keep the family strong.
How we work
We believe the best way to solve wicked problems is through strong collaboration among multiple disciplines. This is why we work on fully integrated teams — design, writing, research, engineering, product management and data science all working together. By giving each function a seat at the table, we learn from each other and bring a well rounded perspective to the process. It helps us build solutions that are best for our community, in addition to being technologically strong and impactful to the business.
What do we believe in
The thing that ties us all together is our relentless optimism. Our mission is to improve people’s lives through the world’s best transportation. In fact, we don’t think of ourselves as a rideshare company. We’re a transportation and urban planning company. When a city is built around people, the avenues can come to life with community, nature and the beauty of clean open space. And we know how to get there in collaboration with others.
Getting more people into fewer cars is a means to this end. And it’s no easy feat. Our greatest competition is the status quo of personal car ownership and getting people to change their behavior. To do this, we have to build something far better than the status quo — and solve problems people didn’t even know they had! And this gets me to the last thing you should know.
Unique challenges we tackle
As I mentioned earlier, we are up against some truly wicked problems in terms of technology, human need and business. To name a few:
- Designing behavior change — Getting in a car with a stranger was precisely what your parents once told you not to do! But through a designed system that includes safeguards, transparency and a values system, we not only make this doable, but preferred.
- Transforming transportation — Imagine if cars were only when and where they were needed. Imagine your city without parking spaces lining every street! Through a connected transportation system we can make sure the ride for you is only where you need it whether it’s an autonomous car, a scooter or a bike. We’re showing that transportation as a service can offer even more freedom than the car in your garage.
- Two-sided marketplace — Millions of people use our product. Some of them are passengers, some are drivers with vastly different needs. In addition, we also design for cities, transportation agencies and global citizens. Designing something to benefit the full ecosystem is quite challenging but rewarding. It feels like we’re studying for our MBA while shipping product.
- Working with cities — For the impact we seek to have in this world, it’s critical we keep a long view. Our aim is to reduce the cars on the road and make those that are there hyper efficient. To do this well we study the pulse of the city to build intelligent routes, and we look beyond the car — improving access to bikes, scooters and city transit. We’re already seeing positive change in the form of parking lots being repurposed for housing and the community.
- Self-driving vehicles — We’re designing something that has never been done before. There are many questions about what the world will look like when autonomous cars are the norm and we’re enjoying the challenge of almost every variable being up for grabs!
In addition, we’re also tackling challenges in how we work. As a company in hyper-growth, we’re frequently welcoming new people to the team putting our older systems to the test. So we design the way we design! We have a design system that we are constantly evolving to ensure it meets the needs of our teams, business and users, and as I mentioned above, we build structures to keep us in sync.
I mention all of this as a heads-up so you can better get to know Lyft Design. These are the things we want to talk with you about. We have learned a ton while tackling these challenges, but we don’t have it all figured out yet. Our hope is to hear your perspective too, and together make big change in this world.
Stay tuned!
Cheers,
Katie Dill, and the Lyft Design Team
