APPLICATIONS
Why design a bicycle user experience?
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The bicycle user experience shifts the focus of street design to the everyday person, and is not about "cycling", but about discovering how the bicycle can be a tool to enhance everyday people’s lives.
By focusing on everyday people themselves, it avoids being political and ensures street designs that actually work for the users and fit into their diverse lives. The approach is easily adaptable to different contexts and communities.
Human-centered design methods can help us (with the)...
The most apparent users of the concept are planners and designers in their street design work. However, citizens can also use it to advocate for more community-centered designs, and politicians and decision makers can learn from it to shape streets that work better for their constituents.
How can we make use of it in practice?
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The high-level goal of the bicycle user experience is to make street design that is conducive to everyday biking, and there are four components that come together to make it happen (see diagram above): learn about people, develop design ideas, contribute to the planning and design process, and evaluate and iterate designs.
Each human-centered design method can achieve one or more of these core four functions, and almost all of the methods can help us learn about people to some extent (e.g. personas are easily integrated into the planning and design process but also help us learn about people).
Specific uses of each method are explored below. At the end, example scenarios are shown of how the four different components might be used in practice. If you have further ideas on applications, reach out to discuss!
Directed Storytelling
Use directed storytelling to develop personas based on real community members
Scenarios
How can the four core components fit into a practical context?
