Designing for the route, not the road

Most map apps think in roads. A road is a piece of asphalt with a name. A route is a relationship between two places, served by a vehicle, at a price, with a rhythm.

When we redesigned the home screen around routes instead of roads, three things happened. First-time users found their first trip in under twelve seconds. Repeat users stopped opening the search bar at all. And the trotro mates we showed it to said, finally, the phone speaks our language.

The road is still there. We just stopped making it the main character.