The design and evaluation of the shared taxi service mobile application in Algeria : a culture-centered design approach

Abstract

Algeria is among the largest countries in the Africa, and the land transportation is the cheapest transportation in the country. Taxi-Inter-Wilaya is a shared-taxi service between cities. It is considered as the favourable way in Algeria, and it benefits them based on travelling time and cost. However, the booking of a seat in the taxi which travels to distant cities is a long journey of about 600 KM or more which is done by phone. Therefore, passengers faced communication problems in the booking of seats, as well as it is difficult to determine the driver’s behaviour or driving performance. Furthermore, taxi drivers are pestered with phone calls for the whole day which puts them in a dangerous situation of risky driving and unsafe journey. This study aims to investigate the challenges associated with Taxi-Inter-Wilaya, passengers and taxi drivers. This study is conducted based on design thinking and cultural centred design approach putting the users as the main focus of the design and evaluation through a series of interview and several iterations of usability testing. To this end, the study proposed a mobile application that can assist and support both drivers and passengers to commute between cities. The results demonstrated that participants accepted and satisfied with the application.