Design of a living as a service platform including shared mobility

Master Graduation Research by Xueyao Li

29 September 2020

This graduation project starts with the goal of making a mobility hub as part of living services.

The project follows an improved double- diamond method.
First, I analyzed the different types and components of mobility hubs. Based on the goal and focus of this project, I determined that the scope of the mobility hub in this project is the community, and the service targets are the residents of the community.

The concept of living services in the project is defined as the living service package which includes the rental service and a series of additional shared services, such as shared space, regular cleaning and maintenance.

In the user research phase, I conducted online surveys and qualitative interviews. The purpose is to understand how different types of users participate in shared mobility and shared living services, and their needs and expectations for community-scaled shared services.

The results show that tenants living in shared living communities (Figure 1) have higher demand and expectations for shared services, thus can be seen as the target users of this project. What’s more, it is found that there is strong association between people’s community life and their participation in shared services. The aim for tenants to participate in shared services is to enjoy a better community life. Therefore, in additional to the physical shared facilities and space, tenants expect value-added services to help them use shared services without concerns and better manage their community life.

Based on the results of user research and discussions with Advier, I took DUWO community as the example for further design and came up with the following design intention:

I want to design a living service concept including mobility, for a community that takes DUWO apartments as an example, to support tenants’ community life.

After investigating DUWO’s current living service system and conducting online sessions with DUWO tenants, I designed the improved DUWO community service system (Figure 2). Except the physical facilities, all the other community services (in the dashed frame) are integrated into an all-in-one community service platform. The concept was prototyped and tested with target users and iterated based on users’ feedback.

The final design, DUWO community service platform, integrates all DUWO’s living services including shared mobility, and also provides tenants with neighborhood interaction and communication services. The communitybot acts as a community service assistant, answers users’ questions and provides users with suggestions and information based on their living conditions.

The final design was evaluated with DUWO experts, and it is considered to be a user- friendly solution to help DUWO tenants enjoy their community life. It is not limited to the functional combination of shared mobility and shared living services, but also makes up for the deficiencies of DUWO’s shared services in supporting services and neighborhood interaction.

Snapshot Living as a Service app

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