Cycle Paths: Taking the bike lane wherever your adventures may lead you
Team update, Global Product Development | By team Cycle Paths: Cristal Banh, Chelsey Campillo, Gabriela Cibils, Nisha Pathak, and Yu Wu
Currently, there are around 66.5 million cyclists in the U.S. With such a large number of cyclists, biking safety has become a major concern. In 2015, 818 cyclists were killed and approximately 450,000 people were injured in biking accidents. Although more infrastructure is being implemented to create better road conditions for cyclists, such as bike lanes and better lighting, they won’t stop cyclists’ injuries or accidents in cities where motor vehicles are still the dominant means of transportation.
As a team, our goal is to develop a product that addresses the challenge of increasing a biker’s visibility. We plan to use lights that communicate a biker’s presence and will also signal turning direction to drivers. We hope that this system will reduce the overall number of accidents while also providing a safer way for bicyclists to travel.
This semester, we have had the unique opportunity to take the course Global Product Development (GPD), taught by Emily Au at the Jacobs Institute. This course guides students through the principles and practices of bringing a product idea to a functional prototype and finally to a mass-produced, consumer-ready product. Over the semester, workshops in the course have included client interviews and user-testing, both of which we found to be very revealing in terms of designing a solution that addresses actual user needs.
Listening and talking to bikers in the Bay Area challenged our initial notions and biases surrounding biking in an urban setting. We heard that not everyone wears, let alone owns, a bike helmet. Some bikers had concerns about how necessary they actually were, others were worried about their appearance after a ride, and several felt that being involved in an accident in Berkeley was unlikely, so they chose not to wear one.
We also found that most bikers we interviewed own at least one bike light. Law mandates that users have a front white light and a red light on the back of their bike. With the knowledge that all of our interviewees had at least one light, we chose to explore this area to see how we could modify and improve this part of the biking experience to increase overall safety. As a team, we decided that building a product aimed at modifying human behavioral patterns (i.e., encouraging users to wear a helmet, to buy both a front and back light, or to wear reflective gear) would pose a challenge that likely could not be solved with a physical product. As a result, we chose to focus on the bike’s light system, as most bicyclists we met with already invest in this gear. Furthermore, because lights are relatively affordable, we felt that we would be able to build a product that would be both competitive and useful in the market.
After significant research into bicyclists’ habits and preferences, as well as market research into existing products, we decided to tackle the problem of biker visibility by creating a portable bike lane that indicates turning direction. One of the most critical pieces of information we gathered from our interviews was that there was no direct or clear way to communicate with drivers when it came to a bicyclist’s turning direction. This often results in standstills at intersections with both the driver and cyclist trying to read visual cues from one another. Quick changes in speed can also occur since either the biker or the car is trying to surpass their counterpart. All in all, both of these behaviors pose a threat to surrounding pedestrians, drivers, and bicyclists.
To help combat this, our product has a front white light, a back red light, a toggle switch to trigger a blinking turn signal (which reflects on the corresponding floor side), and a console that projects laser beams in the form of a bike lane in front of and in back of the bike.
We are currently still working to refine the prototype, and will continue to carry out user-testing to design a more refined and affordable product.
Throughout this design process, we changed and modified our product various times. While it was challenging to continue to push and reevaluate our products, this process always brought us to a better product for our end users. We learned how our own biases and our individual experiences in the biking world influenced our design decisions. By talking to avid bikers and understanding why they bike and the challenges they face on the bike, we were able to focus our product to solve the prevalent problem of low visibility.
We were also fortunate enough to travel to Hong Kong and China with our class, and to gain first-hand knowledge related to manufacturing and package design. We learned ways to reduce overall packaging costs with simple changes to the package’s design. For instance, one company we heard about on the trip was able to save over $1M USD by removing excess plastic in their packaging design! Because the internet now provides anyone with a transparent view into how a product actually looks and functions, package design has taken on a new role. Designers can use this opportunity to create a more vibrant look that is more relevant to the consumer, rather than only placing an image of the product on the front of the package. As a result, companies can utilize packaging design to help foster their brand and its relationship with the user.
While we are still learning and exploring the best way to execute our product from a manufacturing and package design perspective, we have gained key knowledge and best practices to create something that is beneficial for both the consumer and the producers.
Follow along with the Cycle Paths team and their Global Product Development classmates as they continue to develop their projects, drawing from expert insights, a field trip to Hong Kong and China, and more along the way. Over the course of the semester, we’re sharing blog posts from each student team here on Medium (read posts from Team JARAD and Team Million Hands here and here). You can also learn more about the course here.
