Monthly Archives: December 2011

The Joy of Biking

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We presented our public interfaces project last week. We talked about the social tracking platform we want to make for thesis, as well as one potential game challenge that could be hosted in workplaces. The offices would be able to order small game kits, get excited about a 2 week bike challenge, and cheer each other on to try to win over other companies as well as try to beat their co-workers internally. We had fun through making felt icons, posters and game rule books, and the presentation went very well. Yes, there were some changes to be made, but no matter people understood that we love biking, that we want it to spread, and that we believe in spreading it through emphasizing the joy of biking rather than calories burnt or environment saved. Some people even said GO MAKE THE THING! Yay.

Then something broke. Not sure exactly why or how. We went back to the drawing board. We put post-its on the wall and stared at them for 12 hours. We put post-it on cafe tables, and got more frustrated than ever. I felt we were back to where we were at a few months ago – throwing potential features up on the wall.

But this time we did the brainstorm without any joy or playfulness, and we presented some slides we were not even sure we believed in for our thesis work group final presentation. And that’s where we’re at. After having had the most wonderful and eventful semester at SVA IxD so far, we’re all of a sudden confused, clueless and burnt out. It sucks being there when Winter break is upon us.

We still know we want to get people to bike more. We still believe we can do it through playfulness and fun. And we believe in the power of delightful interaction design. But will there be a talking helmet? Or a device to plug on to the helmet? Will it have speakers, mic, a button? What is the button for? Can you add voice notes while biking? Can you add text notes when done biking? Can you hear notes when biking, or is that distracting and dangerous? Can you share your notes with others, or is it a private thing? What is the social in the social tracking platform? What would you share with everyone, what would you share with friends, and what would you keep to yourself (twitter vs. diary)? Can we rely on tracking alone–as long as our communication of the gathered data is different than the fitness-focused competitors like RunKeeper and Strava? Can the added flavor to the platform be through various challenges, rather than in the everyday experience?

Maybe we just need a long break. Judging by the content in this blog, and the amounts of content that didn’t even make it in here, cause we’ve been to busy, I think we actually do deserve it! Happy Holidays to whoever made it this far down a page filled with frustration :)

Design brief

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STAKEHOLDERS
Who should be in the initial meeting?

The founders: Carrie Stiens and Kristin Breivik.
CTO, CFO, Visual Design Lead

OVERVIEW OF PROJECT
An executive summary of the project goals

The vision for the project overall is to create a social tracking platform with game challenges to motivate people to ride their bikes for transportation. Thesis will be our phase 1. Our goal toward the end of thesis is to get funding for the project so that we can build it.

Phase 1:
Research
Discovery
Design of website, app and physical helmet
Prototyping and Testing

BUSINESS GOALS
How will we make money off of this thing?

The basic features of Paint Your City are free to all users. These include the ability to track, bookmark places and participate in game challenges. Users are able to view their data for the previous month to the current date and can bookmark up to 15 places. Involvement in game challenges is unlimited.

Our primary source of revenue will come through premium subscriptions. The subscription gives users access to their data for the previous 3 years to the current date, allows users to bookmark an unlimited amount of places, and allows users to receive secret tips about the places bookmarked by other users of the platform.

Our secondary source of revenue is through product sales. This includes the helmet, game kits and visualization posters.

AUDIENCE ANALYSIS
Background and key findings from user interviews, personas and scenario, demographics and psychographics

Our audience are New Yorkers with under-utilized bikes. They fall under three categories:

Leisure rider
“I ride my bike around my neighborhood and outside the city, but it’s not really a transportation mode for me”
Our goal for this group is to get people that don’t bike to bike.

Casual commuter
“I ride around my neighborhood and to work occasionally. It’s a secondary mode of transportation.”
“I used to ride my bike, but recently have become lazy about it. I’d like to get into it again.”
Our goal for this group is to get casual riders to ride more and to commute.

Committed commuter
“I ride my bike to work everyday. It’s my primary mode of transportation.”
Our goal for this group is to bikers excited about the in-ride experience and to spread the bike love.

COMPETITIVE RESEARCH
Findings from competitive research, positioning, ways to differentiate

As data tracking will be the core of the platform, there are a lot of products out there with similar features; RunKeeper, Nike+, Jawbone’s UP and FitBit are all collecting data and creating visualizations. Paint Your City will be different as we are more focused on the joy of getting around the city on a bike, than on staying healthy and burning calories. That you burn calories is a nice side effect, but you will use Paint Your City mainly to be a part of a bike movement, to share beautiful visual bike stories through your data tracking, and to discover and share secrets about your city. Cause you don’t bike for exercise – you bike to get around.

Other sources for inspiration: Weight Watchers, tour guides, scavenger hunts, games, Tour de France, Daytum, Yelp, Google Places, sports tournaments, Tamagotchi, Cabspotting, Nokia Vine and Chromaroma. Paint Your City will not have any of these services/products as direct competition, but can definitely look to them to include certain elements (game mechanics, city bookmarking, storytelling through data, motivation, personality).

PROJECT SCOPE
Timeline, budget, milestones

December 2011:
Synthesize research
Concepting one potential game challenge
Winter break:
Deciding on advisors
Read books on motivation, community building, gaming, html/css/javascript
Research ways to build extensive HTML/CSS prototypes
Moodboarding. Gather visual appealing material, tone of voice etc.
January 2012:
Prototyping and qualitative research on bookmarking feature
Testing game mechanics
Wireframing website (information architecture and interaction design)
Wireframing app
Processing explorations(?)
February:
Branding
Visual design
Front-end development
March:
Create video pitch
Kickstarter campaign – so we can build this thing
April:
Create presentation
Practice performance
May:
Present thesis product pitch

POSITIONING STATEMENT
Single statement which clarifies product’s purpose, what it will achieve, for whom and why

Paint Your City is a social tracking platform with game challenges that motivates people to ride their bikes. It’s for city dwellers with under-utilized bikes who have a need to maintain a busy and active lifestyle and get around their city. Unlike tracking apps that are exercise-focused (Runkeeper and NikePlus), our service caters to the unique way that a biker experiences the city. In addition to tracking while riding, bikers can bookmark places and events, unlock secrets from fellow riders, be cheered on by friends, and get directions spoken to them. This narrative is visualized on a city map individually or as part of a bigger bike story.

BRAND ATTRIBUTES
List of personality attributes to guide the creative execution of the product

Playful, colorful, but stylish and minimal. Appeal to designers. The data visualizations and the narratives they are telling are the core of the identity.

CONTENT STRATEGY
Direction for messaging, content elements, tone

Clear, simple language. Playful and positive tone of voice. The content core is people’s routes on the map. However, in any communication with the users, be sure to encourage the users to keep riding.

Focus on the joy of biking:
- the empowering feeling
- the sense of flying
- being in charge of your own time
- being in charge of your own route
- the way biking enables you to be impulsive
- the closeness to the city – stitching the city together
- being outdoors and free
- creating a narrative through painting the city

Do not focus on how your choice impacts the environment.
Do not focus on calories, speed, heart rate, cadence.

FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS
Inventory of proposed features for the product

The proposed features include the following:

Web Platform:
Database to store rider info and data
Ability to compare rides between bikers
- sidebar widget that lets the user choose who they want to compare their rides with
Display aggregated data of neighborhoods and networks
Ability to receive data realtime and communicate who is on the road at any given time
Display bookmarked places on a map with tips about them
- roll-over states for places
Interface to view and compare data
Interface to sign up for game challenges
Interface to buy helmet and posters

App:
GPS tracking
Bluetooth connection to the helmet
Receive commands from a helmet or earphone button
Re-programs button on from earphones to bookmark a place
Integration with Twitter and FB to notify friends when tracking starts
Interface for bookmarked places (ex: bucket list)
Interface to start and stop tracking

Game Challenges and Kits:
Three different levels of game kits available
Multiple challenge offerings (work environment, group of friends, partners)
Bike stardom poster for cheers
Text interface and system to cheer for bikers
Rotary phone installation
- ability to call to send a cheer from a rotary phone

Helmet:
Bluetooth connection to the phone
Button to bookmark places
Sensor to stop and start tracking
Microphone to record voice notes, or make phone calls
Speakers to receive cheers, directions, and tips about places

Posters:
Visualize riders data over time
Ability for rider to choose which data to display

CONCEPT SKETCHES
Rough illustrations of pages, flows, aimed at communicating concepts (not complete designs)

Cheer For A Biker

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We’ve been asking ourselves how we can motivate people to bike for a loooong time now. I believe we’ve just found the solution. Just hire Dr. Wires, push him into the audio booth, and there you go! Why would we do that? To create the audio for our cheering wall in the office bike challenge we’re creating:

Below is a behind the scenes walk through of the audio for the cheering interface. Dr Wires had to run along before the photo shoot, but we’re confident that his contribution will get our contestants to hop on their two wheels!

The poster with our bike challenge contestants and their two digit phone numbers is coming along too:

3 Approaches to Embrace

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MAKE YOU OWN TOOLS Hybridize your tools in order to child unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amply our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.

MAKE NEW WORDS Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.

MAKE MISTAKES FASTER & LAUGH Laughing means you’re having fun and also shows that you are comfortable expressing yourself.

How to Write Game Instructions

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As we’ve been narrowing in on the mechanics of game challenges, I’ve been researching and learning about how to write great game rules. Here is a rough framework to work from:

NAME OF THE GAME
designer, date, number of players, suggested age, average length

1. Make the narrative clear, outline the objective/goal
2. Materials needed, Equipment
3. Instructions for setting up, Preparation
4. How to win (winning condition)
5. Rules (from general to specific and special cases)
6. Tell players what they can do
7. End of the game victory conditions

The article, How to write rules without confusing people, this forum, and monopoly  are helpful resources for writing game instructions.

Story Model, v.2

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In my thesis workgroup, we are using a story model to help us delineate the intervention we are making with the thesis project. This is a second take on it.

WHY: What if your city felt smaller and your experience of it felt bigger?

Our reasons are: to spread the joys of biking, to contribute toward human super-powered (better) lifestyles and healthy environments, to help people overcome the personal barriers to riding for transportation, to move toward a cultural shift in the way we navigate and experience our cities

WHO: city dwellers with under-utilized bikes; these people can be defined by three personas:

The leisure rider ( the ‘not yet convinced’) —“I ride my bike around my neighborhood and outside of the city, but it’s not really a transportation mode for me.”

The casual commuter—“I ride around my neighborhood and to work occasionally. It’s my secondary mode of transportation.”

The committed commuter—“I ride my bike to work every day. It’s my primary mode of transportation.”

WHAT: It is a movement to get people to discover and further embrace their human superpowers by biking for transportation. It takes the form of a service paired with a physical product that equips and encourages riders. The physical product is a talking helmet that tracks your rides the moment you put your helmet on, works as a remote for you to bookmark places and events realtime while riding, and helps you find your way in moments where you are lost.

WHEN/WHERE: during a ride, before and after a ride, ‘hunger moments’, planning periods

WHO BY: creators, bike nerd developers, bike community

HOW: mobile application, physical bike helmet, website