I love to use Uber app not only because it makes calling a car to travel so easy, but also because the UI is very useful and effective from the perspective of the Activity Theory.

When I use Uber to call a nearby car, I notice it simplify the user’s goal by one goal at a time. For example, when I’m moving the pin to my current location in the map view, the App will hide the Uber type options, Car vs. Eat option, and the hamburger menu, and after I finalized the pin’s location, it will make the UI focusing on getting my destination address.

Such easiness and smoothness of using the App makes it more successful to help me achieve my goal, which is to travel to a destination from my current location. And from the perspective of the Activity Theory, because of this easiness, it has helped me internalize the interaction with the UI to a level close to unconsciousness after I got familiar with the whole user flow after several trips. Besides, the easiness of using Uber app to call a nearby car also aligns with the Object-Orientedness of the Activity Theory.

Moreover, such easiness and smoothness of using Uber app also represents a unity between consciousness and human activity, from the perspective of the Activity Theory. When it becomes so helpful and so easy to do it successfully, the Uber UI can also be analogized to an extension of our human body, which responds to our consciousness to perform certain task as we wish.

From another perspective, the design of the Uber app has also casted impact on the environment, as a way to reflect our spiritual relation to the cosmos, according to the Activity Theory. The most obvious feature of Uber that has this effect is Uber Pool, through which up-to-3 riders can share a car at the same time to save gas and be more environmentally friendly.