Bogota Motorcycling
Introduction
The Product
Bogota Motorcycling is a platform to help motorcycle users to access information and services during complex scenarios: Accidents, criminality, and transit officer encounters.
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The problem
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Motorcycling commuting in Bogota has been increasing significantly during the last decade. Thus, the challenges for the riders and the authorities are likewise escalating in terms of accidents, criminality, and corruption.
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The goal
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Generate a tool to enable the user to access information and create/share reports during stressful situations such as being a victim of motorcycle thieves, being involved in an accident, or perceiving abusive/suspicious behavior during an encounter with a transit officer.
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Responsibilities
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Design and implement surveys and interviews, construct empathy tools, develop prototypes ( wireframing, mock-ups, and hi-fi flows for testing), and plan and implement user testing sessions.
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My role
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UX/UI Designer & researcher.
Stage 01
Understanding the context/user
Reading the context
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Part of understanding Bogotá as a motorcycling context was the review of available documentation.
City-planning, safety manuals for the use of motorcycles, and even documents of international events related to good motorcycling practices (hosted in Bogota) brought significant cues of the knowledge around the topic in the city.
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Living motorcycling
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Getting involved in the context represented the idea of becoming a motorcyclist and observing from this particular perspective.
Participating, observing, and documenting the context of motorcycling brought me insights into the pain points and allowed me to reflect on the mismatch between the available knowledge and its implementation.
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Talking with experts
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​Understanding the risk of Bias during my self-ethnographical approach, I complimented the research process by implementing surveys and interviews with local motorcyclists and experts.
Collected information ended up feeding affinity maps like the one above.
Yellow: motorcyclist interviews.
Green: A self ethnographic exploration.
Orange: Interviews with experts.
Purple: Reading.
Understanding Motorcycles.
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Apart from the valuable knowledge acquired during the immersion in the environment, I enrolled in a motorcyclist mechanics course to understand the vehicle itself.
Stage 02
Ideation
Design challenge
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After the vast amount of information collected during the empathy stage, I decided to guide my design proposal to the development of an APP.
The potential of such digital tools to reach the population regardless of social status allows me to permeate multiple communities affected by the found pain points.
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The digital proposal is composed of the following 3 elements:
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The app stores information about the users and their motorcycles as a resource to feed tools that mediate the interactions the motorcyclist may encounter during the journey.
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The Locked-screen widget works as an SOS button that enables quick and efficient contact with emergency services.
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The desktop site works as a platform that enables the users to manage their information in a different format and check sensitive information about reports collected on servers.
Wireframes
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The definition of the elements listed above required multiple flows explorations; however, only those that proved convenient during the early testing continued to the following stages.
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Stage 03
Design & Testing
Design challenge
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After conducting some user tests through wireframes, the process of refining the product and defining the appearance and some interactions of the user interface ( animations, transitions...) determined the next steps of the process.
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Such a process did not represent the ultimate UI version (no design system yet), but it was helpful for advanced UX experiments like role-playing testing.
The following mock-ups represent drafts ( version 1.0) of the final UI used for advanced testing and refinements.
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Locked-screen Widget.
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Without unlocking the phone, the user can send an S.O.S. message in a few steps, allowing emergency services to receive detailed and precise information.
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Such information may include the location of the incident, the health record of the pilot and pillion, insurance details, and motorcycle pictures in case it is stolen.
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Dashboard A
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The initial dashboard ( home-screen) allows the user to check and configure any critical information required for a ride.
Therefore the motorcyclist can check the first glance if there is any document close to the due date and check notifications about technical aspects of the motorcycle.
On the other hand, he can select the passengers to facilitate information access ( widget) in an emergency.
Finally, the motorcyclist can voluntarily track the journey to analyze stats at the end.
Dashboard B
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Confronting authorities due to unusual protocols or abusive behavior should not be typical. In fact, most of the interviewees are afraid to react in such situations.
However, there are situations when people decide to react and desperately try to collect information; sadly, such information ends up in alarming videos floating anonymously on social media.
Dashboard B is a tool that enables the user to consult his rights during such a situation and offers a guide to (correctly) collect information such as officers ID, context identification, and video clips.
The collected data will be stored on a cloud( avoid illegal phone confiscation) and can't be modified; hence, it may represent valid evidence for both parties.
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Testing & Refinements
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I conducted multiple user tests during different stages of the process; however, understanding the complexity of the context of use, I recreated the situation through a role play for the most recent tests.
Website
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Despite at first glance, the site's primary function is to forward users to the app; in the user profile section, the user can manage his personal information and review, organize, and bookmark information captured by the Dashboard B of the dedicated app.
Impact.
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A clear interest in the product release came from different perspectives during the user test, interviews, and project presentations.
There is even a constant inquiry in scaling the developed features to the automotive sector.
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What I learned
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This experience expanded my knowledge of urban mobility (motorcycling) and allowed me to go deeper into user experience with experiments like role play.
Additionally, the testing of features and the evolution of the app was quite revealing, considering some features flows got blocked because I was underestimating the user's knowledge in terms of transit rules.
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Next Steps
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After refining the design part and constructing some front-end elements (learning purposes), the project's documentation will be checked by the product design department of Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin to obtain the title of Meisterschuler in Product Design.
Additionally, the project will be presented to local institutions in Colombia to identify receptivity and potential stakeholders for its development.