When I project finally deployed at the end of 15 weeks, I could not have been more proud of my team and how we worked together. Poolerz is currently being tested across clubs and organizations in Metro Atlanta and our work has been a great initial product for our client to continue building and scaling up as they grow.
Looking back, the opportunity to create a 0-1 product and lead and design a full implementation instilled a deep appreciation for the product lifecycle and iterative design process. I am continuing to learn about qualitative user research and solution ideating and I can't wait to keep building on this experience.
Moving Forward
Shoutout to my teammates Natasha Narayanan, Tyler Cady, Ignacio Galindo, and Matthew Dworkin!
When I project finally deployed at the end of 15 weeks, I could not have been more proud of my team and how we worked together. Poolerz is currently being tested across clubs and organizations in Metro Atlanta and our work has been a great initial product for our client to continue building and scaling up as they grow.
Looking back, the opportunity to create a 0-1 product and lead and design a full implementation instilled a deep appreciation for the product lifecycle and iterative design process. I am continuing to learn about qualitative user research and solution ideating and I can't wait to keep building on this experience.
Moving Forward
Shoutout to my teammates Natasha Narayanan, Tyler Cady, Ignacio Galindo, and Matthew Dworkin!
Timeline
15 weeks
My Role
Product Manager, Product Designer, Developer
Team
1 Product Manager, 1 Engineering Manager, 1 Product Designer, 5 Developers
Tools
Figma, Miro, Jira, Github, VS Code
15 weeks
Timeline
My Role
Product Manager
Product Designer
Developer
Product Manager
Product Designer
Developer
Team
1 Product Manager
1 Engineering Manager
1 Product Designer
5 Developers
Tools
Figma
Miro
Jira
Github
VS Code
Figma
Miro
Jira
Github
VS Code
A dynamic website for easy carpool grouping, scheduling, and management
Poolerz
Poolerz
Poolerz
Planning - All in One
Planning - All in One
Coordinating carpools doesn’t have to be chaotic. We bring everything together with a personalized dashboard showing a schedule and drives in a clear, calendar view.
Parents can track who’s driving and their scheduled rides, ensuring users stay organized and in sync with their group - reducing confusion and making planning effortless.
Quick & Optimal Scheduling
Planning is complicated. Poolerz can help. Using our optimization algorithm, the app sorts members into groups and allots weekly driving schedules.
Based on members’ factors like distance, car capacity, and driving availability, our optimizer is able to create clusters, grouping users and ensuring less driving and less planning.
Find Your Communities
Busy families need easy groups. Our platform makes it simple to create and join organizations so that families can be grouped with other members in their community.
Find current organizations through join codes and easily enter information.
Don't have a group? Create one and share it with others!
Feedback and client response to our mid-fi prototypes gave us great direction into how we could iterate and clean on design for development. Working in sprint sessions, I made sure that designs were developed one full sprint before they had to be developed, in order to give us time to communicate interface updates and progress with the client.
In the span of 5 sprints, my team was able to develop a fully fleshed out product, building on the wireframes we had ideated weeks before. The site was created to be mobile responsive, able to be used across devices for easy access anywhere, and prioritizes a clean and minimal design for parents and adults to view effortlessly.
Hi-Fi Designs & Development
We decided to use a current-state analysis and user questionnaire to uncover more about ongoing pain points for current participants and future requirements for our new design.
Before we could start on development, our team had to understand where the current product was. The client was currently using an Excel spreadsheet and email template to manually group children, assign drivers, and map schedules, taking up far too much time and creating a clear problem in terms of scalability.
User Research & Requirements
Check out the demo video and product here!
Creating a new carpool
Joining an established carpool
A Carpool tab with sections to start a carpool, join a created one, or view current
A Carpool tab with sections to start a carpool, join a created one, or view current
A Carpool tab with sections to start a carpool, join a created one, or view current
A clear calendar dashboard for easy viewing of schedules
After outlining our design requirements and aligning on our key features with the client, our team moved on to initial wireframing and prototyping. Stemming from questionnaire responses and established user flows, I used Figma to create low-fi sketches and mid-fi prototypes for some user testing.
Wireframing
A low effort calendar schedule
A low effort calendar schedule
Our design should create a solution that takes the heavy lifting off of parents and easily visualizes their schedules and routes for their week
Our design should create a solution that takes the heavy lifting off of parents and easily visualizes their schedules and routes for their week
Jump in, drop out
Jump in, drop out
Our implementation should look to include a way for parents to update or add changes to their schedules and automatically update other users in the carpooling group
Our implementation should look to include a way for parents to update or add changes to their schedules and automatically update other users in the carpooling group
Connection & community
Connection & community
Our app should provide a secure way to match parents and choose drivers on a given route, as well as share necessary contact information across families
Our app should provide a secure way to match parents and choose drivers on a given route, as well as share necessary contact information across families
Coordinating schedules is hard to do alone
Coordinating schedules is hard to do alone
Most parents do their carpool planning by themselves, through group chats or calendars, worrying most about the stress of synchronizing different routes or having to be in multiple places at once
Most parents do their carpool planning by themselves, through group chats or calendars, worrying most about the stress of synchronizing different routes or having to be in multiple places at once
Parents’ daily lives change constantly - their schedules should change with them
Parents’ daily lives change constantly - their schedules should change with them
Parents tend to create plans multiple days in advance, up to a week or more, but last-minute changes are a frequent struggle for their schedules and planning
Parents tend to create plans multiple days in advance, up to a week or more, but last-minute changes are a frequent struggle for their schedules and planning
Safety is key
Safety is key
Parents base their trust on how well they know each other, more so than are they vetted drivers. Mutual trust, friends of friends, living near each other - all factor into community and safety in carpools
Parents base their trust on how well they know each other, more so than are they vetted drivers. Mutual trust, friends of friends, living near each other - all factor into community and safety in carpools
What we found:
Our team created an accessible site for families to set up, group, and schedule carpools through an efficient optimization alogrithm. Using an iterative process of design and development, we built a product that was able to begin beta-testing and won 3rd out of 70+ teams at the Georgia Tech CS Expo.
Our team created an accessible site for families to set up, group, and schedule carpools through an efficient optimization alogrithm. Using an iterative process of design and development, we built a product that was able to begin beta-testing and won 3rd out of 70+ teams at the Georgia Tech CS Expo.
Our team created an accessible site for families to set up, group, and schedule carpools through an efficient optimization alogrithm. Using an iterative process of design and development, we built a product that was able to begin beta-testing and won 3rd out of 70+ teams at the Georgia Tech CS Expo.
Solution
Managing schedules can be overwhelming for parents balancing school drop-offs, extracurricular activities, sports clubs, and other commitments. Many currently rely on texting groups, phone calls, or paper schedules, generating a need for a reliable and easy-to-use solution that enables parents to match rides for their children safely and efficiently.
Problem
Throughout two semesters of my junior year, I completed a Capstone Project with 4 other team members, working with a local Atlanta startup to create a system that would ease the stress of arranging carpools for families and organizations.
Overview
Overview
Overview
A
V
A
V
When I project finally deployed at the end of 15 weeks, I could not have been more proud of my team and how we worked together. Poolerz is currently being tested across clubs and organizations in Metro Atlanta and our work has been a great initial product for our client to continue building and scaling up as they grow.
Looking back, the opportunity to create a 0-1 product and lead and design a full implementation instilled a deep appreciation for the product lifecycle and iterative design process. I am continuing to learn about qualitative user research and solution ideating and I can't wait to keep building on this experience.
Moving Forward
Shoutout to my teammates Natasha Narayanan, Tyler Cady, Ignacio Galindo, and Matthew Dworkin!
Quick & Optimal Scheduling
Planning is complicated. Poolerz can help. Using our optimization algorithm, the application sorts members into carpool groups and allots weekly driving schedules.
Based on members’ factors like distance, car capacity, and driving availability, our optimizer is able to create clusters, grouping users and ensuring less driving and less planning.
Find Your Communities
Busy families need easy groups. Our platform makes it simple to create and join organizations so that families can be grouped with other members in their community.
Find current organizations through join codes and easily enter information.
Don't have a group? Create one and share it with others!
Planning - All in One
Coordinating carpools doesn’t have to be chaotic. We bring everything together with a personalized dashboard showing a schedule and drives in a clear, calendar-style view.
Parents can easily track who’s driving and their scheduled rides, ensuring users stay organized and in sync with their group - reducing confusion and making weekly planning effortless.
Feedback and client response to our mid-fi prototypes gave us great direction into how we could iterate and clean on design for development. Working in sprint sessions, I made sure that designs were developed one full sprint before they had to be developed, in order to give us time to communicate interface updates and progress with the client.
In the span of 5 sprints, my team was able to develop a fully fleshed out product, building on the wireframes we had ideated weeks before. The site was created to be mobile responsive, able to be used across devices for easy access anywhere, and prioritizes a clean and minimal design for parents and adults to view effortlessly.