E-bike Shopping Tool

Designing a better way to research e-bikes

E-bikes are a product that is a potentially revolutionary and essential tool for fighting climate change. Since they are more complex than a regular bicycle, the average buyer faces a lot of challenges with expertise, technical know how, and an industry that can be hostile to newbies.

I designed an e-commerce tool to solve for the complexity of shopping for e-bikes as part of my coursework at SVC. The end result was a tool for researching e-bikes with both desktop and mobile versions.

My Role

• User Research,
• Information Architecture
• Interaction design
• Prototyping
• Usability Testing

Duration

10 weeks

Summary

The Challenge

Shopping for an e-bike is difficult because the  process involves hard to understand technical terms

My experience shopping for an e-bike was frustrating. Spending so much time researching new terminology took time from thinking about what I wanted from an e-bike. My experience showed me an opportunity to improve the process.

What if buying an e-bike was as simple & stress free as riding an actual bike?

The Solution

An e-bike shopping tool that speaks the same language as the user

The main idea was to use common language so they can focus on what they wanted to do with their bike versus researching. Throughout the research process other ideas would come also be included.

The Outcome

A research focused e-bike shopping tool with interactions & copy informed by user insights

I designed the site to be research focused in response to user insights. The tool showed users where buy their e-bike locally and also gave them the option to buy accessories for their chosen e-bike directly on the site.

"I love that it is simple, straightforward & has a mobile interface"

-Test Participant

Process

Identifying the User

Recreational Riders or Commuters who were interested in e-bikes, but didn't know a lot about them

I started with user interviews because I wanted to understand how people shopped for e-bike.

After the interviews I created a survey based off interviewee's answers to confirm my insights with a larger group. The survey was aimed at people who were interested in buying an e-bike and had 40 participants.

"I don’t know much about bicycles, I researched using a lot of online reviews"

-User in Survey

The user I needed to design for was not confident in their knowledge of e-bikes and preferred to use the internet to research, but buy in person. They also were recreational or commuters that highly valued accessories and utility.

Using the insights from the survey I created a set of goals to solve for.

Insights

1. Users prefer to buy an e-bike in person, but research online
   
2. Majority rated their e-bike knowledge as low to middling
   
3. Accessories are important to users
   
4. Users valued Utility & Quality the most when researching an e-bike
   

My Goals:

• Design labeling based on simple language
  
• Focus tool for researching e-bikes
  
• A solution for accessories & comparing utility
  

Ideas to help newbies research a complex product

Let's give them a rosetta stone for e-bike jargon

Labels for the newbie based on tasks vs. traditional categories

I built the site's labelling and filters using language created by the users so it made sense to them.

I used an open card sort so that the users could organize and name items in a way that made sense to them. I wanted to avoid letting my own biases create terms & organization that only made sense to me.

Surprisingly most participants sorted things into task based categories. The tasks that came up most often were Commuting, Utility/Errands, and Recreation/Fitness.

Home screen showing the main categories

Categories from Card Sort

• Commuting
• Utility / Errands
• Recreation / Fitness

Filter menu for mobile

Research-focused user flow, with a mobile-first design

I designed a research-focused flow because users were mixed on buying an e-bike online. The intent is that users could quickly research an e-bike using task & need based filters and categories.

The filters used simple language and avoided e-bike manufacturer terms, for example "class 3" became "28 mph." Once a user had an e-bike picked the tool showed them where they could find it locally. using the tool they could walk into a shop knowing exactly what they wanted.

Accessory suggestions & a comparison tool

Users strongly valued utility for their e-bike & they wanted accessories too, so I designed swimlanes for accessory suggestions & a comparison tool

I designed the comparison tool knowing that other sites like REI had similar features. I thought it would help users find the e-bike that fit their definition of utility the most.

The site was also designed with a specific accessory page and included accessories as suggestions on the details page of each e-bike.

Sketches for comparison tool

Validating the ideas

I ran a usability test for one user flow – it was limited, but it showed that the basics worked

The task users were given was to find an e-bike using a provided set of needs using the filter and category options, then find a shop where they could go to purchase the bike.

The results from this test were encouraging, with an average task completion time of 45 seconds and a 100% task success rate.

45 second

Average task completion

100%

Task success rate

Next Steps & Learnings

The start of a potentially bigger project

This project really was important for my understanding of the whole UX process. Starting with user research, then moving the rest of the process, it was encouraging to see that the ideas had some legs after a small amount of usability testing.

This project remains in its current state as a lo-fi prototype, but if I were to restart it I would: 

• Building out more of the prototype, including the user flow for purchasing an accessories, improving the local e-bike shop recommendation
  
• Creating a high-res prototype along with a visual identity for the tool
• More usability testing with a larger group of participants to expose any weaknesses in the design

Thanks for checking me out! If you'd love to collaborate drop me a line

Skills & Services

• Motion Design
• UX Design
• Branding & Strategy
• Art Direction
• Videography
• Photography

Selected Clients

• Publicis Groupe
• Heineken
• BLKRCK Creative
• See Stories