GOBikeT/O

An app aimed at helping cyclists in Toronto feel genuinely confident to ride in the city.

GOBikeT/O is an app concept resulting from an upper level design research course at OCAD University. It tackles the question of “How might we empower cyclists new to Toronto to have genuine confidence while riding in the city?” by encouraging safer, informed route planning, and rewarding for safe riding habits. Cyclists who use the app can also use a small handlebar-mounted screen that communicates directions and warns of hazards.
The problem space, research questions and concept evolved throughout the course of the project as my two teammates and I enacted a design research process. My roles were team leader, lead researcher, report and presentation content writer, and in the final stages, wireframing the app’s phone-based screens.

Design Process

The course lasted for four months, and concentrated on a design research process with a limited scope. We were encouraged to choose a project topic that fell into “Health/Wellness/Fitness”, “Education”, and “Entertainment”, and to design either a space, a product or technology, or a service. The process we needed to follow was a simple “double diamond” approach, in which the first half involved discovering insight into a problem and defining the area of focus, and the second half included development of potential solutions and delivering a prototype at the end.
Discovery of Problem Space
To establish a problem space, my teammates and I opted to draw on personal experience: all three of us were cyclists to some degree. In particular, I am an avid cyclist, and was experiencing Toronto’s cycling infrastructure for the first time, coming from a city I perceived as much more “cycling-friendly” (Vancouver). The idea of how to make a city more “cycling-friendly” was appealing to us.
Secondary Research/Define Opportunity
Part of our problem defining phase involved conducting secondary research, which led me to finding numerous sources (statistics, academic studies, anecdotes) supporting my perception of how dangerous Toronto is for cyclists, and comparisons to the environment of other cities.
“How Might We?” Problem Framing
At this point, we moved forward with a “How Might We?” statement that persisted in including ambiguous terms such as “cycling-friendly” and “intimidating” in its attempts to define what problem we are trying to solve and why. I wrote an autoethnography report to include my own observations of Toronto’s problems with cycling, using the AEIOU (activities, environments, interactions, objects, users) observational framework.
Semi-Structured Interviews & Data Analysis
We chose to target only “new” cyclists (those new to cycling and/or to Toronto), to avoid absorbing biases from cyclists who have adjusted their behaviour to Toronto’s specific challenges. Our interview guide aimed to gain insight into the experiences of people who had not adjusted, to find out how the city does or does not support their behaviour. The resulting interviews generated deep and passionate conversations on the topic, and revealed meaningful themes within the collected data.
Data Synthesis & Prototype Development
The turning point of this project was realizing the need for “genuine” confidence. Several interviewees felt there is a lack of education and understanding of the city’s environment by other new cyclists. This led to an app prototype focused on forewarning users of what to expect and how they can handle cycling in Toronto safely, rather than attempting to “fix” the city in some way.
Usability Testing & Prototype Refinement
In addition to the app prototype, we built a handlebar-mounted smart watch-sized screen device meant to provide information to the user while cycling, absent the need to keep a hold on a phone. We tested both in iterations, refining after some initial observations in how the app might work more effectively. The final version was very successful, showing how cyclists could have helpful information at hand, and how to react to their, and others’, advantage.
Finalized Concept & Presentation
The final presentation was a “gallery walk” between booths, ours including a poster and a display of our prototypes. We reacted to several rounds of feedback and shared insights with the class.

Results

Beyond the scope of the class, this concept is ready for further interaction design and development. There were several feature concepts that we could not include due to time and scope constraints, including a more detailed and educational safety scoring system, communication and data sharing properties to connect cyclists with drivers and city infrastructure, and an integrated social network to provide fast, accurate updates to the road conditions, similar to the benefits of the Waze app for drivers. Our data from the semi-structured interviews supports the need for all of these potential directions to take future development in.
  • OCAD University: Bachelor of Design (Industrial Design)
  • September-December 2019
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