Lyft vs Uber: Words at war
Despite being objectively similar, how do these ride sharing apps establish individuality? Let’s break down their language nuances.
Imagine a bustling cityscape during rush hour, and I'm frantically trying to book a ride to make it to a crucial meeting. With a quick tap on my phone, I turn to Uber, appreciating the straightforward efficiency of the app. This prompted me to wonder: how does Uber's UX writing stack up against its competition, like Lyft? This blog post dissects the intricacies of their language choices, exploring the subtle differences in tone, labels, titles, and more.
First Impressions: Warm vs straightforward tone
Let's take a look at the first impressions when you land on the homepage of Lyft and Uber. On Lyft's homepage, the greeting is warm and welcoming “Happy Tuesday, Pushti”. By incorporating the user's name, Lyft creates a sense of familiarity, creating an intimate connection with the users. The search input field maintains this friendly tone by posing a question: "Where are you going?" It's clear, engaging, and guides you seamlessly into your journey. On the other hand, Uber takes a more direct route. The homepage skips greetings entirely, leading with a concise "Where to?" in the search input field. This straightforward approach cuts to the chase, allowing users to swiftly explore additional features and suggestions within the Uber app.
Choosing a ride: Longer vs shorter descriptions
Uber takes a more formal and businessy approach when suggesting ride options. They keep it short with labels like 'Popular' and 'Economy' (right), but they provide a bit more detail in the descriptions, focusing on the perks of each ride type to help you choose better. Uber generally does a good job giving you the highlights on each ride without getting too wordy. However, the ‘Connect’ label (right) introduces confusion. The label and description, mentioning 'Standard packages, up to 30lbs' seem disconnected, almost resembling a courier service rather than a passenger ride, potentially adding noise to the list of ride options.
Conversely, Lyft's interface feels less cluttered, featuring longer section titles like 'A new everyday upgrade' and 'More ways to get there'. However, these titles could be made more concise to eliminate redundancy; for instance, ‘A new everyday upgrade’ could be shortened to ‘Upgrade picks.’ Even though Lyft keeps the descriptions short, they might be a bit too repetitive. Take the 'XL' ride, for instance – it says 'Fits up to 6' in the description, and there's also an icon showing 6 people, causing information overlap and reducing its effectiveness.
Ride Cancellation: Uniform vs user-centric labels
In terms of labeling feedback options when a user cancels a ride, Uber employs a parallel grammatical structure, opting for action verbs like 'requested' or 'selected.' This uniformity not only enhances comprehension but also brings visual harmony, accompanied by icons. In contrast, Lyft takes a slightly different approach, using incomplete phrases such as 'Can’t accommodate me.' In this phrase, it assumes that it's the driver who couldn't accommodate the passenger, but the absence of the word 'driver' might make you pause for a second to get what they mean. Interestingly, Lyft adopts a more user-centric tone with phrases like 'Someone took my ride,' or ‘Driver asked me to cancel’ creating a sense of familiarity as if it's a phrase passengers might use themselves.
Booking in advance: Exclusive vs Routine undertone
Another interesting nuance can be noticed in the way both apps approach advance ride booking. Uber uses the title ‘Reserve a ride’ and Lyft uses ‘Schedule a ride’. Although the denotations of both mean the same i.e. to book a ride in advance, the connotations may appear slightly different. ‘Reserve’ may evoke a sense of exclusivity and priority, ensuring that a ride is available when needed, suggesting a level of urgency or importance. This exclusiveness is further emphasized with the second point of text description which says ‘Extra wait-time included to meet your ride’. On the other hand, the word ‘Schedule’ is associated with planning. It suggests a more systematic approach allowing users to plan their transportation in advance, potentially for regular or routine trips. This can be a reason why Lyft chooses to include the heading ‘Choose a pickup time’, directly correlating to the planning aspect that they’re trying to achieve.
Have you noticed similar patterns? Share your thoughts and insights in the comments!