Byke :: Behance

Team:

Bánk Horváth, Christian Brandstrup Jensen, Andreas Jonsson,

Marianne Have Petersen, Jonas Wenke

This project was developed during the Autumn Semester 2015 as part of the Service Systems Design Master at Aalborg University Copenhagen.

CONTEXT

The nature and purpose of a stay in a foreign city will differ from person to person and situation to situation, but the general experience of being a visitor involves a set of specific, temporary needs. Whether your schedule include business oriented or leisure activities like meeting up with friends or family or checking out the local shops and cafés, one service is needed to bind all the elements of the experience together: transportation.

There are different ways of having this need satisfied.

However, when considering the importance of bikes in the culture of Copenhagen, and seeing the vast amount of bikes in the city, a great opportunity and question comes to mind:

"How can we design and implement a peer-to-peer bike sharing / bike rental service, which empowers local bike owners and visitors to create economic and social value with and for each other?“

CONCEPT

'Byke' is a peer-to-peer bike sharing service aiming to empower local Copenhageners to share their bikes as well as their knowledge with visitors, in order to give visitors an engaging and authentic experience of the local culture, and to monetise and create value with otherwise under-utilised resources.

SCENARIO

TECHNOLOGY AS AN ENABLER OF TRUST BETWEEN STRANGERS

By using the benefits of new technological opportunities, we are able to connect people from around the world, and facilitate the entire process from initial contact to the final return and review. This, while also making it as safe and easy as possible for both the owner and renter involved.

SPECIFICATIONS

VISUALISATIONS OF THE APP

You can find a clickable prototype which represents possible aestethics along with main features of the Byke-app here.

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PROCESS

The purpose of this project was to investigate the topic transportation in Copenhagen with the focus on bikes. This was done using the Design Thinking approach as a mindset to understand and explore the opportunities of the topic. Through the use of various service design thinking methods and tools we came to understand the existing services of the public transportation, local commuters, visitors and local bike owners in Copenhagen.

Re-drawn modal based on http://designthinking.co.nz/

Our final peer-to-peer bike sharing service called Byke was developed by working iteratively with our understanding and discoveries, and going through several phases of empathy, define, ideate, prototype and test.

PERSONAS

A mix of engaging and goal-directed personas for both the owner and renter side were developed based on user interviews with locals and tourists as well as insights, feedback from and information about couchsurfers and airbnb-users. These personas were an important element in our process and helped us to empathize with the target group.

One renter persona is depicted below.

The service targets open-minded, helpful and social people, who aspire to seize new opportunities and use technology to improve their own lives as well as the lives of others.

DEVELOPMENT OF APP

Multiple iterations of sketches on paper and board, digital wireframes, user testing with both analog and later digital prototypes led to a clickable prototype representing the flow and the features of the Byke app. As presented above, we furthermore developed another clickable prototype mainly focusing on aesthetics.

GENERAL BLUEPRINT

To present the important steps of using Byke we have created a service blueprint. With the service blueprint we are able to display both front- and back stage processes of using the service Byke, through user actions and media touchpoints. By doing so, we are making the process/action of using Byke tangible and visible and therefore easier to explain and understand. Presented here is the general service blueprint, which shows the use of Byke, from entering the service by opening the app, to end of the service, rate and review.

The final blueprint has a unique form. As displayed below the 'renter action' is on top and the 'owner action' on the bottom. Thereby it becomes obvious that the technology, namely the Byke-app interface on the front stage, the backstage and supporting processes connects the two parties.