Booz Mobility Case Study Design by Pixel Pandya

Back in 2018, I got a call from Rutvij, a friend of one of my friends. He told me he was an entrepreneur and wanted to build a mobile app for his new startup, Booz Mobility. Over that call, he shared his whole vision with me. He wanted to launch India's first civic-approved electric kick-scooter rental platform.

The idea sounded incredibly exciting, but as a freelance designer, I knew building a complex utility app from a completely blank canvas was going to be a massive challenge. I took it up, and this is the story of how I designed Booz Mobility from scratch.

Overview

Booz Mobility wasn't trying to be another standard ride-sharing app. Rutvij explained that they were targeting a unique hybrid market. Instead of scattering scooters all over a city where they could get stolen or damaged, Booz planned to operate in two specific areas:

Corporate & Industrial Campuses (B2B): Large gated tech parks, universities, and manufacturing zones where employees need to commute between buildings.
Leisure & Tourist Hubs (B2C): Structured public spaces like the Sabarmati Riverfront or the Statue of Unity.

My job as the solo product designer was to take this business model and create an easy-to-use Android app from scratch. I was responsible for end to end design.

Project Understanding

Before designing the first screen, I spent a couple of days just breaking down how this system would actually work in real life. I realized that renting a physical scooter involves a lot of real-world friction.

How does a user find a scooter quickly when they are rushing for a meeting inside a massive tech park?
How do we make the unlocking process take less than 5 seconds?
How do we stop users from parking randomly and getting the company fined by local authorities?

Since this was an Android app, I also had to keep in mind that many users would be using budget devices with slower cameras and weaker GPS accuracy. The design had to be lightweight and foolproof.

Market Research

I started looking for similar scooter rental apps, but to my surprise, there were none available in India. Although dockless scooter apps like Bird and Lime were becoming popular in the US and Europe, the Indian market was very different.

I wanted to understand why this model hadn’t succeeded in India, so I started studying the challenges. Two major reasons stood out.

The Parking Chaos: Open dockless systems often lead to scooters being parked on footpaths, abandoned in random locations, or vandalized. Booz’s decision to use designated hubs instead of free parking was a smart business decision, and the app needed to guide users to park only at approved locations.
Connectivity Issues: Many corporate campuses and tourist locations have unreliable network coverage. The experience needed to remain simple and reliable even when the internet connection was weak.

User Persona

Now that I had a better understanding of the product and its target market, my next step was to identify who I was designing for. Based on the business model and expected user behavior, I created two user personas representing the primary users of Booz Mobility.

Creating user personas gave me a clear picture of who I was designing for, but I also wanted to understand how these users would think, feel, and behave throughout their journey. To do that, I created empathy maps for both personas, helping me identify potential pain points and opportunities before moving into the design phase.

Empthy Map

User Story

Problem Statement

Creating empathy maps helped me understand the challenges users could face throughout their journey. Based on these insights, I identified three key problems that the product needed to solve before moving into the design phase.

I identified three major pain points for users:

Corporate employees struggled to find and unlock the nearest scooter quickly when they were in a hurry. Any delay in this process could make them late for meetings and reduce trust in the service.

Users often felt unsure about where they could ride and park the scooter because the operational boundaries were not always obvious. This could lead to incorrect parking and unnecessary penalties.

First time users found the scooter rental process unfamiliar and intimidating because they had never used a shared mobility service before. Without clear guidance, onboarding and starting the first ride could become confusing.

User Flow

With the key problems clearly defined, I wanted to understand the complete rental journey before designing any screens. Instead of focusing on individual features, I mapped the entire user flow from signing up to completing a ride. This helped me identify every interaction, reduce unnecessary steps, and create a smooth experience throughout the app.

Early Concept Designs

With the user flow finalized, I started creating early concept designs through low fidelity wireframes. My goal was to explore different layout ideas, validate the complete rental journey, and make sure every step felt simple and intuitive before moving into visual design.

The wireframes covered the complete user experience, including onboarding, finding nearby scooters, scooter details, QR code scanning, ride tracking, payment, ride summary, and user profile. These early concepts helped me discuss ideas with the founder, gather feedback, and refine the experience before designing the final interface.

Final Design Solution

After validating the early concepts with the founder, I started designing the final user interface. My focus was to create a clean, simple, and intuitive experience that made renting an electric scooter easy for both first time and returning users. Every screen was designed to reduce friction and help users complete their journey with confidence, from finding a scooter to ending a ride.

User Onboarding

The onboarding experience was designed to help new merchants get started quickly.

Ride Experience

I designed the complete ride experience, allowing users to find nearby scooter hubs, view available scooters, unlock a scooter by scanning a QR code, track their ride in real time, and end the ride with a photo confirmation to ensure the scooter was parked correctly at the designated hub.

Wallet & Ride History

The Wallet and Ride History screens allow users to manage their balance, view transaction history, and access details of previous rides, providing a clear record of payments and completed journeys in one place.

Project Outcome

The project successfully transformed an early business idea into a complete mobile application, providing users with a simple and intuitive way to rent electric scooters. The product laid the foundation for Booz Mobility’s launch and helped bring the founders’ vision to life.

Designed the complete Android application from the ground up.
Simplified the scooter rental journey from sign up to ride completion.
Created a user experience tailored for both corporate campuses and public spaces.
Helped transform the founders’ idea into a working product.
Booz Mobility was later featured on Shark Tank India and secured ₹40 Lakhs in funding.

The project helped establish a strong mobile interaction foundation focused on usability, operational simplicity, and quick decision making for users interacting with mobility services in outdoor environments.

Learnings

Working on Booz Mobility taught me that designing a great user experience goes beyond creating good looking screens. I learned how to design for real world situations where users interact with physical products, GPS, QR codes, parking rules, and changing network conditions. This project also strengthened my ability to turn an early stage idea into a complete mobile product by working closely with the founder throughout the design process.

Designing Booz Mobility: Building a 0-to-1 Micro-Mobility App for Android