Designing a Bicycle User Experience for the Everyday Person

Editor's Notes

1. TALK SLOWLY! GUIDE THE AUDIENCE THROUGH YOUR TOPIC! Goal for this presentation: Introduce usability, why it’s relevant and how it can be applied to street design to make everyday biking normal, safe and comfortable. shift discussion on bike planning and what you think of as “cyclists” towards actual people themselves (the user). (Dab in the topic, explore it.)
2. NOTE: This is Qualitative research, Exploring phenomena I am working on USABILITY because I want to find out HOW TO METHODOLOGICALLY DESIGN FOR HOW PEOPLE FEEL so that I can help others understand HOW WE CAN MAKE A STREET ENVIRONMENT WHERE EVERYDAY PEOPLE FEEL COMFORTABLE RIDING A BIKE. Exploring phenomena This is about PEOPLE, not bikes. We need to understand people (the user) to design streets more suited for them. They are normal people that just happen to be using a bike to get from A to B.
3. Adjectives I developed from observation of people riding bikes while studying abroad in The Netherlands. So I saw people looking like this in The Netherlands. Going into this project, these were my goals: how can we make people feel like ______ (independent, joyful, etc.) while riding a bike? Connect the design of the street to elicit feelings. QUESTION FOR AUDIENCE: pick one of the words and tell us about a time you felt that way. (then think about how you feel while riding a bike in NYC. Do you feel like these words? and how it could be with different street design).
4. Understand these terms so you can better follow me in the presentation. Note that in Tech, these things are usually referring to a screen (the iPhone screen is the user interface, the app or website is the product, which designers have to think about how it fits into people’s everyday lives).
5. We have people, street design, and urban planning converging for this research question. We need to have experts from different fields to answer this question. So we’re having a dinner party and are going to invite experts to help us answer the research question (through reading their literature, at least). EXPLAIN the theory each expert brings and why each person is at the dinner table. THEN, together with these people we can explore the research question.
6. So we have all these academic perspectives, and now let’s pivot back to the user (people). These are people on bicycles, not “cyclists” or “bikers”. To design for them you need to study THEIR needs. Pictures I took in The Netherlands. Look at how these are normal, everyday people going about their lives, they just happen to be on a bike. EXPLAIN context of each picture, why you took them, what they show, etc.
7. The methods are more grounded in design, but are very related to the social sciences, just with different wording. EXPLAIN EACH method, and what it actually consisted of (very briefly, and then be prepared to answer questions).
8. Touch on how this guy Nielsen who’s trying to understand how people interact with products (especially websites) thinks of principles that designers should consider. Now I’m gonna translate this into what urban planners/street designers should do for bicycles.
9. I translated the Heuristic Evaluation to principles that apply best to making streets conducive to everyday biking.
10. This was my process for doing so. I used a respected design book to do this. Move through this slide quickly though.
11. I translated Maslow’s traditional hierarchy of needs to that of people getting around to their various destinations. People's basic needs of safety, functionality and reliability are met on this bike path in Amsterdam. The bikeway then builds off this and goes further: by going through the famous Rijksmuseum, people get an enjoyable experience and are many are left in awe. People biking feel Awe on Rijksmuseum path, but they ABSOLUTELY feel the lower level needs first.
12. Again, I took these pictures while studying abroad in The Netherlands. I observed these principles and people experiencing them firsthand (some present to a greater extent more than others — biking in The NL is still not a perfect experience, and they still have a long way to go as well. With that said it’s quite good to ride a bike there.) FOCUS ON THE PEOPLE, not just the infrastructure The people’s use of the street and their appearance tells us just as much about the street’s usability as the street itself. If diverse groups of people are comfortable and relaxed, the street is likely working. Note: these principles do overlap and are not mutually exclusive.
13. After translating the idea of a Heuristic Evaluation to designing streets for everyday biking, I performed an actual Heuristic Evaluation on a street that right by The New School here in NYC: 5th ave between ___ and ___. Ideally this HE is done by multiple evaluators but due to time constraints for this project I was not able to coordinate that and just did it myself alone.
14. After translating the idea of a Heuristic Evaluation to designing streets for everyday biking, I performed an actual Heuristic Evaluation on a street that right by The New School here in NYC: 5th ave between ___ and ___. Ideally this HE is done by multiple evaluators but due to time constraints for this project I was not able to coordinate that and just did it myself alone.
15. I WANT TO END WITH THIS - PEOPLE. BRING IT BACK TO THE PEOPLE. REMEMBER: This is about people, not “bikers”. Both pictures are of people. Just in different environments. On the left an elderly couple can go about their day on a bike without a second thought or any sort of adjustment. The other picture represents an environment where people do not feel welcome, he has to dress up in safety gear and the street is not “usable” so to speak. (it doesn’t follow the principles.
16. Questions?