Joining The Data

Today we pushed forward on the exploration of a next generation version of the Dublin Bike, which caters to the most vulnerable road users to Air Pollution, inner city cyclists.

Dublin Bike, Clean Link: The bicycle navigation tool that allows users to choose cleaner routes to get to their destination and an additional app feature which enables the commuter to plot their path prior to collection of the bike. For interested members of the public there is a detailed break down of the stats of each route, the red route being the quickest path to the station and the green route being the cleanest. For the novice user the simple choice of 2 paths offers an alternative to the quickest route, which will gently entice cyclist to be more conscious of emissions on the road, that air quality changes and has an impact on health.

The day began by having a lengthy discussion about the details of both the interface on the dashboard of the bicycle, and operation of the Clean Link feature within the Dublin Bike mobile Application. We imagine that the version 2 of Dublin Bike would be part designed in conjunction and under the guidance of the EPA.
We sketched ideas and brought these together to settle on the final design.

With the help of our technician Ed Devane we quickly programmed the interactions of the dashboard LED navigation display, to enable the team to user-test the concept. This was realised in two iterations, the initial version was hacked using handle-bar mounted lights for night time illumination of a cyclist. Once we had this prototype operating we brought it to the Dublin Bike, and based off feedback came back to the studio to begin the build of a more hi-fidelity navigation tool. This is how we imagine the final design would look. 

Deciding upon the colour sequence, we believe the centre 6 lights in green give a intuitive direction to follow forward (Green for proceed). The yellow rows of lights on the left and right, alert a user that a turn is approaching, yellow being the symbol for decrease speed, preparing to make a turn.


Our next aim was to try and replicate the
dash-board of the Dublin Bike which will have the circuit board incorporated into it, this process consisted of taking a first mould from the bicycle
 using  rolls Cellacast.

In the mean time, we began to digitise all of the Design tools that we had used to test and explore the service. Testing this design against our primary user ( from our personas the design is specifically looking to target Stephen and Claire) and the context of use of our product. This involved a service blueprint, heuristic evaluation and persona scenarios.

We also began the process of using Adobe After Effects as a way of demonstrating the functions of our design, as many of our early user testing has required the tester to self direct the navigation tool.  This is a problem that we believe through careful thought, a projector and a static cycle bike we can over come to get the best insights from users........