As autonomous vehicles become more prevalent, the need for a seamless and intuitive user experience to locate and onboard these driverless cars has become crucial. Traditional cab booking systems, designed with human drivers in mind, fail to address the unique concerns users have when there’s no driver to communicate with or assist them.

How can we ensure users feel confident and safe while booking, locating, and riding in a vehicle without a human driver?

The crux of the problem wasn’t just about booking a ride; it was about creating an experience that allowed users to feel&nbsp;in control, even when they weren’t physically driving or interacting with a driver. Users needed a way to:

Easily locate their vehicle without the help of a human driver.

Understand what the autonomous vehicle was doing in real time (e.g., its location, route, and speed).

Feel safe and have a clear line of communication in case of emergencies, despite the lack of human intervention.

The results revealed two primary pain points:

Uncertainty in locating the car: Without a driver to assist, users were anxious about finding their vehicle, especially in busy areas or during nighttime rides.

Lack of communication and safety concerns: Users were used to relying on drivers for reassurance and directions, and the absence of this interaction in an autonomous vehicle led to feelings of vulnerability.

Next, I analyzed existing ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft. These platforms heavily relied on human drivers to facilitate smooth onboarding. The driver would typically park in a visible spot, communicate via the app or phone, and assist with navigation during the ride.

However, in the context of autonomous vehicles, there’s no human intervention to fall back on. This is where I saw an opportunity to introduce new touchpoints that could reassure users in the absence of human oversight, addressing the need for transparency and emergency communication

The above findings helped us further narrow down our problem statement, so we came up with our final design task:

How might we ensure a seamless and intuitive user experience for locating and onboarding autonomous vehicles without human drivers?

I brainstormed and decided that I would need to have two components as part of our overall solution:

1 - A mobile app that would provide users with additional ways to track and locate their cars during pickup

2 - A car dashboard that, in the absence of a driver, users would use to communicate before and during their rides.

I started designing high-fidelity prototypes by creating a style guide for the user interface and determining the major screens of the app. I used Sketch for UI design. Visual design was inspired by Uber and Tesla, while I focused more on features for pickup and the riding experience.​

Let us walk you through our design solutions using Jay’s journey as an example. 

Jay wants to get a car on Uber to take him to Del Rey Cafe, and he decides to try Bolt, the self-driving cab.

The app shows the car has arrived, since there is no driver to call or text, Jay is trying to use the in-app features to find the car and then unlock it.

Now Jay is in the car, but he has coffee in his hand and doesn’t want the car to start immediately before shutting the door, fastening the safe belt, and putting his coffee in place. The in-car dashboard allows him to start the ride manually and provides real-time route information. He can also change the destination if he wants to go to another place.

Design drop-off experience to make a complete ridesharing experience

Involve more stakeholders in research, testing, and design phases

Explore and design more solutions to ensure a safe ride

Enable multi-modality, such as VUI (Voice User Interface)

The crux of the problem wasn’t just about booking a ride; it was about creating an experience that allowed users to feel in control, even when they weren’t physically driving or interacting with a driver. Users needed a way to:

Bolt - Designing the Onboarding Experience for Autonomous Cabs

Product Designer who thrives in ambiguity and owns problems end-to-end. Rare dual expertise: consumer apps at scale (Astro247: 5M+ users) and complex prosumer SaaS (Unize: multi-view data visualization, enterprise information architecture). Built production design systems from scratch (150+ components, token architecture, dark mode) adopted across web and mobile. Led user research initiatives (interviews, A/B testing, usability studies) to validate design decisions. Agency co-founding background provides business fluency and stakeholder management skills. Remote-native collaborator comfortable leading cross-functional work with minimal oversight.

Solo designer scaling an AI-powered astrology platform from MVP to 5M+ active users. Evolved product from early scrappy prototype to polished consumer brand. Owned visual design language, feature strategy, user research, and cross-platform experience consistency.

Agency designer working on diverse product verticals: MedTech, social debate platforms, fantasy sports, and AI-powered financial SaaS. Collaborated in team of 4 designers under senior design lead.

Design internship at venture builder working on early-stage startup MVPs.

Co-founded and operated boutique digital marketing agency serving global clients. Managed end-to-end design execution for 20+ brands while learning business operations and client relations.

Built a design system that replaced UI debates with shared decisions, giving 4 product teams a single source of truth to ship faster and more consistently.

A design system that stopped UI debates and helped the team ship faster

Medici is a new kind of health system that offers life changing benefits in impactful ways. It’s the kind of care celebrities seek. 

Medici - America’s No. 1 Health Benefit Platform

Anubhav brought a rare blend of product thinking and design intuition to our team at Favcy. He wasn’t just focused on how things looked, he deeply cared about why we were building them and how users would experience them. Whether it was defining user journeys from scratch, identifying friction points, or aligning the product with business goals, Anubhav consistently delivered with clarity and impact. He has the mindset of a founder, proactive, sharp, and outcome-driven and made a noticeable difference in how our product evolved.

JG Manoj Maheshwar

Anubhav is a rare find in the design world, a "Designer" who actually thinks from both a business and a user perspective. He took our complex product requirements and didn't just skin them; he architected a system that was both scalable and intuitive. His ability to bridge the gap between high-level strategy and pixel-perfect execution was instrumental in our early-stage growth. If you need someone who can own the design vision and execute at high velocity, Anubhav is your person.

Bolt - Designing the Onboarding Experience for Autonomous Cabs

Anubhav Dudwewala