Case Study: E-commerce (RedBike)
RedBike Studio is a spin studio located in Brickell, Miami. RedBike prides itself on being a full body experience focused on the mind, body, and soul. RedBike’s cult-like following and raving reviews on Classpass prove they are changing the game in Miami’s highly competitive fitness industry.
“A high-energy, full-body, party-on-a-bike.”
This week’s design challenge was to identify current issues within a local e-Commerce website. We chose to work with RedBike. We identified issues with the current website and prototyped a solution to Redbike’s e-Commerce experience.
Secondary Research
The fitness industry is a $22 billion industry in the United States.
According to the Association of Fitness Studios’ 2016 Marketing Best Practices Research Report, indoor cycling studios generated 55% more revenue than other types of fitness studios.
Overall, RedBike is highly rated (4.9 on Classpass) especially for being in operation for only five years. We determined that the issues do not necessarily lie within RedBike’s current business model, but rather with the e-Commerce site itself. We wanted to identify firsthand, how RedBike’s current website affected its users.
Empathize
Our first step always involves empathizing with our tribe. We decided to go directly to the source. We conducted 7 in-person interviews with current RedBike members, instructors, and staff. It was apparent from the very beginning that all of the members were not only passionate about how much they loved Redbike but how much they preferred RedBike to its various competitors. One RedBike member stated:
“Redbike is a community, unlike other studios.”
The vast majority of users stated that they discovered RedBike through a referral. Although this is great news for any business, there was much to be desired about RedBike’s current site. We created an affinity map in order to organize the data we received from RedBike’s current users.
Business Analysis
We created a Lean UX Canvas in order to dissect RedBike’s e-Commerce challenges. This provided a clear guide on the issues that needed to be tackled and the path of least resistance needed to solve issues within RedBike’s current website.
We then created a Value Proposition Canvas which mapped out the current user tasks, positive feedback, and user frustrations expressed during our interviews. It also includes detailed recommendations for products and features that might help alleviate our user’s problems. This diagram helped us to determine exactly how to bring value to RedBike users as it is based on the qualitative data collected during our user research.
RedBike Vs the Competition
Shown below is the Feature Comparison Chart we created to observe just how RedBike holds up against its direct competitors. We analyzed the websites and features of local spin studios. From this data, we identified the exact cause for the main pain-points that our users previously expressed in our interviews. A lack of engaging visual content, user profile, and easily accessible account management caused a few hiccups for current RedBike users.
The Market Comparison Chart shown below demonstrates the overall climate of spin studios in the Miami area. We identified a Blue Ocean in the quadrant representing a highly active community as well as an innovative user experience. Users stated that most popular studios have a corporate vibe that does not appeal to RedBike customers. This details sets them apart from their competitors. We estimated that an increase in RedBike innovation would position them in a sweet spot appealing to a larger variety of users. We aimed to tackle this later in the iteration process.
Defining Our Tribe
In order to create a representation of our primary user, we created a primary user persona which exemplifies the characteristics, goals, and pain-points of our user. This user persona is drafted directly from the data we collected from our research.
After identifying our tribe, we created a User Journey Map that demonstrates the path our target user currently takes beginning from researching spin classes in the area all the way to the end of the workout. This map was also created based on the data received from our primary and secondary research methods. The low points in the user timeline demonstrate places RedBike user pain-points and opportunities for growth.
The user pain points included no visual imagery demonstrating the RedBike culture and experience. This poses a problem as it does not allow potentially new RedBike users to take a glimpse at what they are buying. RedBike currently has a popular instagram page, but none of that imagery was available on the website.
In addition to this, RedBike’s current “New to RedBike” page does nothing to educate the user. It serves more as an “About us” page, telling users about the history of RedBike and its founder. We later found a FAQ page (that was not clearly visible in the main navigation bar) and thought that the information held there would be better served for new user education and on-boarding.
The last pain point observed was the RedBike site did not allow users to easily view previously scheduled classes. There was no resource for current RedBike users to easily view or edit their class schedule.
Task Analysis
While looking through the current RedBike website we wanted to map out the exact path our users would experience. This task analysis diagram shows the process of selecting the right class (new user education/on-boarding), buying a package, and finally, reserving a spin class. During this process, we noticed a clear absence of a user profile. The closest thing that could qualify as an account management page is the “My Classes” page that is only available after making a purchase and reserving a class. This poses an issue for returning users. During one of our interviews, one user stated
“The website doesn’t show the classes I have scheduled for the week.”
Sitemap
From there we observed and created the RedBike sitemap. This was a very quick process as most of the navigation bar only took users to one page.
Heuristic Analysis
The Heuristic analysis was created after an in-depth analysis of RedBike’s current page.
Main Scenario
Vibrant Victoria’s meeting at work will end up taking a couple more hours than she anticipated. She needs to cancel her spin class that was scheduled to start in 30 minutes but she cannot leave the meeting to call Redbike to cancel the class. What does she do?
Problem Statement
Based on our research, Redbike members experience difficulty keeping track of their personal class schedules, stats, and studio preferences. This results in high bounce rates, overall confusion, and disorganization for Redbike users.
HMW - How Might We…
Pain point: No user profile
We decided to focus on the loyal and passionate members of RedBike as we noticed that their user experience was flawed.
How might we design a personal profile for existing users that helps them conveniently manage their membership at Redbike when no current system exists?
Ideation
To begin the ideation process, we created and grouped potential features. This gave us a clear visual representation of what should and should not be included.
MoSCoW Method
Continuing the ideation process, we used the MoSCoW Method to rank our ideas basing it on the effort needed by the business to implement said features vs the impact they would have on the user. This process was needed to rate and categorize the functions and features of Redbike’s new user profile. We focused on the features that would provide the most value to current and future RedBike users.
Success & Fail Metrics
We will know we are successful based on a number of quantitative and qualitative metrics recorded from usage of RedBike’s website. These metrics include:
- Task completion rates
- User retention
- Weekly site usage
- Decreased bounce rates
- Positive user feedback
- Increased sales
Shown below is our user flowchart which would solve our Main Scenario shown above. The user simply logs in, clicks on their profile, views their schedule and clicks to reschedule where a calendar prompts them to choose a new class date and time, the user then selects their preferred seat in the class and done! They have now rescheduled their spin class. A simple solution that may be overlooked but is vital to a positive and convenient user experience. This process guided our screen creation shown below.

Prototype
To begin the prototyping phase, we used the crazy eights methodology to rapidly prototype potential screens for our low fidelity concept sketch.
We then moved onto low fidelity concept sketches that we used to test our prototype with users.
Mid-Fi Prototype
Play the video below to view our interactive mid-fi prototype.
Hi-Fi Prototype

Conclusion
We identified the main user pain point to be the lack of a user profile to manage their membership. Although there were many issues with the current Redbike site, we decided to focus on the most urgent issue.
In the future, we would like to address the taxonomy of the site, as well as, implementing more content that educates new users on Redbike’s culture. This could potentially attract more users causing an increase in task completion rates, revenue, and user retention.
