UX/UI CASE STUDY · 2026
COOGCOMMUTE
Making the UH commute a little easier. https://coogcommute.vercel.app/
A student-focused carpooling experience designed to help University of Houston commuters find trusted carpool matches, save money, and spend less time fighting Houston traffic.
ROLE
UX/UI Designer + Developer
TIMELINE
July-September 2026
PLATFORM
Mobile Web App
TOOLS
Figma · React · Tailwind · Supabase
01 — DISCOVERY & DEFINITION
For UH commuters, the ride to class is part of the problem.
Houston’s peak-traffic commute can reach 1½ hours one-way. At UH, 85% of students commute, often entering the same traffic at the same time, with stress about gas, parking, safety, and arriving to class on time.
85%
of UH students commute rather than living on or near campus.
75%
of questionnaire responders drive alone to campus.
80%+
reported commute times of 30–60+ minutes.
I used a UH Commuter Questionnaire, one-on-one interviews, and a competitor review to understand the daily friction behind the commute, before deciding what an app should solve.
QUESTIONNAIRE
25+ Google Forms responses
INTERVIEWS
2 UH commuter interviews
COMPETITIVE REVIEW
Uber Rideshare · UH Go
Carpooling needed a trust layer.
AFFINITY MAP
Meet Isabella.
Isabella Thompson is a 21-year-old biology student who commutes from Cypress while balancing demanding classes, volunteering, and family. Driving alone adds time and cost; public transit feels unpredictable and unsafe.
WHAT SHE NEEDS:
· Trusted nearby classmates
· HOV access
· Split gas and toll costs
· A safer women-only option
02 — STRATEGY
Create a UH-specific way to find a ride that feels practical, familiar, and safe.
* Must have: Carpool Matching, UH Verification
* Should have: Gas Split Calculator, Women-Only Option
Competition - why not just use Uber or UH Go?
UBER RIDESHARE
Has ratings and a women-only option for safety, but isn’t UH-specific. Matches are with strangers, not verified students, and there’s no gas-split or UH event alert system.
UH GO (official UH app)
Built for navigating campus, class schedules, and grades, but has no carpool matching, cost-splitting, or student verification features at all.
From the matching flow to a built experience.
I created the user flow for one core feature - carpool matching - and then designed grayscale low-fidelity wireframes. From there, I created a cohesive style guide similar to the UH branding, then moved onto higher-fidelity screens before writing code.
03 — DESIGN MEETS CODE
A clear, UH-rooted commute companion.
VERIFIED STUDENT MATCHING
UH email verification responds directly to the trust signal identified by 16 questionnaire responders.
WOMEN-ONLY OPTION
A requested option for students who need a more comfortable way to arrange their commute.
SPLIT COSTS
A gas and toll calculator addresses the recurring expense of driving alone.
GUEST MODE
Visitors can understand the product before logging in; student matching remains gated to UH accounts.
I built CoogCommute in React with JSX, HTML/CSS, and Tailwind, using Supabase for the backend and database. The application utilizes Vite as the server and is deployed on Vercel. Moving from wireframes into a functioning app required many ongoing tweaks.
React · Tailwind · Supabase · Vite
UH email verification was implemented as a safety and trust decision; only verified UH email addresses can sign up for student carpool matching.
FINAL PRODUCT DEMO
4 - REAL-WORLD TESTING & FUTURE ROADMAP
50+ students signed up in 1 day
Within hours of launch, real UH students were signing up, creating profiles, and reporting issues. I fixed the bug within hours and was approached by a rideshare startup and UH's Wolff Entrepreneurship Center (ranked #1 undergraduate entrepreneurship program)!
50+ users
Signed up within the first 24 hours from one Reddit post and one student org.
Same-day fix
A verification email bug (OTP codes not being sent to UH addresses) was found and resolved within hours.
On the roadmap
A feature request for a metro/bus rider safety chat, added based on user feedback.
“It would be super cool to add a chat for metro train/bus riders. If you’re riding late, it would be nice to connect with others so you can coordinate and stay safe together.”
- r/UniversityOfHouston commenter
A first idea is only the beginning.
This project showed me how different it is to design an experience and then build it. Ideas that worked in Figma often became more complex once implemented with real data, reinforcing that iteration matters more than designing once and moving on.
Phase 2 (Immediate Local Testing)
Phase 3 (In-App Safety Chat)