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Ideal Experience of Bike Safety in Savannah

About the Project

Throughout this project, we followed the Lextant approach to design research including observation, interview, sensory cue workshop, and affinity mapping techniques. This research focused on the desired experience and led us to create our ideal experience framework and client magazine highlighting aspects of the ideal experience of locking your bike. 

My Role

Project manager

Lead visual designer

Time Frame

8 weeks

Fall 2023

Tools Used

Miro

Figma

Adobe Illustrator

Google Sheets

Design Process

Secondary research

Non-participant observation

In-depth interviews

Sensory cue workshop

Affinity mapping

Framework

Client Magazine

Design Opportunities

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Overview & Secondary Research

During our secondary research, we took a broad approach, diving into different lock types, bike/scooter types, rack types, theft prevention, and what to do when your bike gets stolen, etc. Our research allowed us to narrow down our project scope to focus on the process of traveling to a destination and actively locking your bike/scooter.

User Journey

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Non-participant Observation

Technique:

Non-participant observation: focusing on bike commuters locking (or not) locking their bikes.

Locations:

1. South end of Forsyth park (Sentient Bean)

2. Kroger (Grocery Store)

AEIOU:

date & time
where (picture)
demographic (estimated age, sex, etc.)
kind of bikes/scooters (bike model)
estimated price

locked/unlocked/taken into building
time used to lock
lock type (take picture)
estimated lock price

Location 1: Forsyth

Context:

Observed during Jazz fest when the park was super crowded.

Photo observations:

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Data Results:

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Location 2: Kroger

Context:

Observed on a Sunday night as it is a popular grocery shopping time.

Photo observations:

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Data Results:

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Observation Takeaways:

*Total our group observed in 8 different locations

Location:

Location made a huge difference in percent of riders who locked their bikes. Many more bikes left unlocked and unattended at Forsyth than Kroger.

Delivery Drivers:

At Kroger, I observed two separate food delivery bikers who both took over 3 minutes to lock their bikes and by body language seemed extra concerned with bike security.

Timing:

Timing seemed to be a large pain point for the users who did lock their bikes as it often took longer than 1-minute to lock successfully.

In-depth Interview
Techniques

We ensured our interviewees were comfortable by having an interview introduction as well as making sure they consented to be recorded.

We created a discussion guide as a framework that ensures all sorts of questions are answered in our interview process.

We focused on asking open, heart-based, and future-oriented questions.

Taking Notes

1. Screener Questions

These questions were sent out to possible interviewees to make sure they were fit for the full in-depth interview.

2. Pre-Interview Survey

We created a google forms survey to collect data from our eight participants prior to the interview to help inform the interview.

3. Discussion Guide

Our discussion guide was 16 questions total, divided into three topic sections: general security, locking, then bike rack design.

We started with an introduction and ended with a conclusion allowing interviewees to add any additional thoughts/opinions. 

4. Spreadsheet Organization

Our spreadsheet is organized by participant code to keep track of all eight interviews.

5. Data & Codes

From out interview data, we pulled out key words and themes which became our codes.

1. Do you own a bike/scooter?

2. Have you had your bike/scooter stolen?

3. Do you commute on a bike/scooter?

4. How do you feel about biking in Savannah?

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Preliminary Interview Insights:

Savannah is seen as extremely unsafe when it comes to bike security. Most participants reported that they knew at least a handful of people whose bikes or scooter have been stolen. 

Most participants avoid taking their bike to unfamiliar places and prefer to take the bike inside a building if they consider a location unsafe.

Most participants are aware of how bikes are stolen and avoid cable locks because they can be cut.

Sensory Cue Workshop

Our sensory workshop followed a similar process to our interviews, involving screener questions, the pre-interview survey, and spreadsheet organization.

 

During the workshop, we guided the participants by asking follow-up questions for each action.

Pink Sugar

1. Workshop Set-up

We decided to split the workshop into two parts since we were already exploring features within our ideal experience.

1. Experience Canvas: Emotions & Benefits

2. Features & Sensory Cues

2. Canvas Design:
Experience Canvas

We directed our participants to drag words and photos into either of the two sections -- one reflecting their ideal experience and one the barriers to their ideal experience.

Participants were encouraged to add any of their own words or photos that came to mind.

We focused on asking these two questions to help our participants elaborate:

How do you want to feel?

What makes you feel this way?

3. Canvas Design: Features & Sensory Cues

This canvas followed the same instructions as the experience canvas, but we had participants drag stimuli into 5 different feature categories:

1. Efficient

2. Reliable

3. Safe

4. Easy to Use

5. Responsive

4. Data Obtained

Here is a visual of all 8 of our participant's completed canvases. We entered all of our data into the same spreadsheet in order to discover patterns.

5. Codes

From our Google Sheets data, we expanded on our codes to help distinguish themes from our 8 workshops. 

From our 3 most common themes, we grouped the words and photos that were discussed during the workshop.

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Preliminary Workshop Insights:

Riding in places with other people makes bikers feel safer about cycling/locking their bikes. More bikers would mean more abundant bike racks and more convenient locations.

4 out of 8 participants said that they feel anxiety about locking their bike.

(“It’s always on the back of my mind.”)

Locking a bike should be easy to do. Keys are the most convenient, logical, and efficient way to operate bike locks.

Affinity Mapping

Goal: 

Visually organize and consolidate all of our research data into findings/insights.

Four-step Process

This process involved turning all of the interviewee data from the in-depth interviews and sensory cue workshops into sticky notes in order to create affinity maps. 

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First, we began with direct sticky notes from all of interviews and sensory cue workshops.

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Second, we organized all the yellows into groups connected by themes, that we labeled with blue sticky notes.

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Third, we further abstracted the data as we categorized blues into groups.

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Fourth, we summarized the pink labels by creating green sticky notes.

Overview of affinity groups

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736 Yellows

151 Blues

34 Pinks

12 Greens

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Framework Design

After synthesizing all of our research, we developed a framework representing the ideal experience of locking your bike.

Image by Dayne Topkin
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Breakdown

The framework design from the inside out includes emotions, benefits, and features that represent the ideal experience.

 

The design of the framework is a tool to help visualize our key insights taken from our green sticky notes.

Lextant: Making Experiences Actionable

1. Emotions: How does the user want to feel?

2. Benefits: What does your design have to provide in order to make people feel this way?

3. Features: How does your design deliver the benefits?

Client Magazine

After synthesizing all of our research, we developed a framework representing the ideal experience of locking your bike.

City Bikes

Design Opportunities

Visualized at the end of our client magazine are three different design opportunities connecting to the ideal experience of locking your bike. 

Which did we choose?

Check out this case study to see which opportunity we prototyped:

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