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Transforming the Melbourne bicycle scene
Boosting people’s bike riding confidence with riding partners
Concept project
The City of Melbourne
Tools
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Figma
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Figjam
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Google forms
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Pencil & paper
Team
Team of 3
Role
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UX research
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UX design
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Project management
Duration
2 weeks
My contributions
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Developed survey and interview questions
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Conducted interviews
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Synthesised findings
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Created archetypes
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Created user flows
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Sketched initial designs
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Iterated wireframes
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Conducted usability tests
Summary
The brief
The City of Melbourne is the local Government council responsible for the municipality of Melbourne.
Their goal is to become Australia’s premier bicycle city.
Our task was to create a solution that would attract non-riders and occasional riders to cycle more.
The solution
​​A mobile app that allows inexperienced riders and experienced riders to communicate with each other and organise a time to go for a ride.
Inexperienced riders will learn from experienced riders, whilst experienced riders are helping people to reduce their environmental footprint.
The research
People are scared of riding and are unfamiliar with bike routes, rules and etiquette.
Regular riders began riding with friends.
People care about improving the environment.
Next steps
​Research to understand what people base their decisions on when deciding to connect with someone on the app. This will inform what information should be required in people’s bios.
Introduce group riding events.
Integrate with fitness apps to track and share activity.
The problem
Non-riders and occasional riders need a way to increase their knowledge about bike routes, rules and etiquette.
Reflection
​User flows inform what screens are needed! I struggled to create initial sketches until I realised that we forgot to create a user flow.
Design the right thing, before designing the thing right! We are often scarce on time, so we must prioritise to create an MVP that addresses the core problem.
Full case study
Overview
The City of Melbourne is the local Government council responsible for the municipality of Melbourne.
Their goal is to become Australia’s premier bicycle city.
They aim to achieve this by attracting occasional riders and non-riders to cycle more.
In this concept project, my team designed a mobile app that encourages people to connect and bike ride together.
The challenge
Our hypothesis
Our task was to identify what stops people from riding bicycles, and formulate and design a solution that would help the The City of Melbourne increase bicycle ridership.
Occasional riders and non-riders don’t have the confidence to ride bicycles because of a lack of knowledge about safe bike routes, rules and etiquette.
The research
We received 18 survey responses and conducted 14 interviews
We first asked participants to complete a survey because we wanted to identify their habits and behaviours before diving deeper into their attitudes and thoughts through interviews.
Unearthing people’s habits, behaviours, and attitudes
50% of survey respondents owned bikes.
50%
61% of those respondents said they are not likely to ride a bike in the next 12 months.
61%
What we heard
Inexperienced riders
Lack of knowledge and awareness of bike routes, rules and etiquette were key barriers stopping Melburnians from riding.
Interestingly… safety concerns was a major concern, despite most participants having zero or infrequent experience riding.
This gave us insight into the role that cognitive bias plays and an area to overcome.
Experienced riders
Gained confidence by riding with friends who showed them the ropes.
We also discovered that people’s environmental concerns are a motivator for adopting bike riding as a regular means of transport.
Affinity Map
Who rides bikes these days?
We created two archetypes from our user interviews.
Why an app?
We asked participations about how they search for information about their council and local events.
70% said that they search online using their mobile phone.
What’s most important to riders?
Given a 2-week timeframe, we wanted to prioritise features and functions to create an MVP that would meet the City of Melbourne’s and the two archetypes’ objectives.
Prioritisation Matrix
Where we hit a minor roadblock
We were eager to sketch the solution and forgot to create a user flow. But I realised that we needed the user flow to help begin the sketching process!
The user flow allowed us to visualise how members of the app would connect with each other and meet up for a bike ride.
User Flow
Concept Design, Prototyping, Usability Testing and Iterating
Find a partner
Chat to a partner
Meet for a ride
Sketching
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Figma
We ran two design studio sessions to come up with a solution. We iterated based on participant feedback.
The solution
We designed a mobile app that allows inexperienced riders and experienced riders to communicate with each other and organise a time to go for a ride.
What will motivate both users to use the app?
A carbon footprint tracker that shows users how much less carbon footprint they use when cycling compared to their other means of transport.
Measuring Success
For this concept project, we would present the project to stakeholders, test it's tech feasibility with developers and create metrics together.
Where to next?
Learn what people are basing their decisions on when choosing to connect with someone
Introduce group riding events
Integrate with fitness apps to track and share activity
What didn’t go well
User flows are essential
We began sketching screens before creating a user flow! I was having difficulty sketching, until I realised that I didn’t know what screens are needed! We then took a step backward and created a user flow which made sketching easier.
Simplify the idea because people are lazy
People care about the environment but are lazy when it involves changing behaviours. Therefore, we had to simplify our solution so that the concept had a chance to succeed.
Lessons learnt
Psychological safety creates a tight-knit team
Prior to commencing this concept project, my team discussed our strengths, weaknesses, communication and work styles. This fostered greater trust and ensured smooth sailing.
Design the right thing, before designing the thing right
Us humans have so many wonderful ideas to help people, but so often we are scarce on time. That’s where the importance of prioritisation comes into play, in order to create an MVP that gets to the core of the problem!
