BikeLOC is a tool to that lets anonymous heroes help reunite lost, stolen, or abandoned bicycles with their owners. This app also supports local non-profits and reduces workload by law enforcement entities by saving time and money.
Bike theft is one of the most common crimes occurring in the world yet in many places reporting a theft is difficult and police departments are frequently understaffed to investigate reports this type. At the same time people who found bikes are rarely reunited with their owners due to not having a clear path of return.
Create a way for people to quickly report lost, stolen, or abandoned bicycles and reunite them with their owners while reducing police workload by incentivizing local bicycle non-profit groups to assist in recovery efforts.
UX Designer performing app research and design for BikeLOC Recovery App for delivery to engineering.
Conducting interviews, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, and iterating on designs.
I conducted interviews and created empathy maps to understand the users I'm designing for and their needs. A primary user groups identified through research a mix of cyclist and joggers, non-profit / charity bicycle repair volunteers, and law enforcement supervisory staff with tight budgetary concerns.
This user groups confirmed the appreciation for a simple method of reporting and recovering lost, stolen, and abandoned bicycles but were overwhelmingly interested in the brevity of the reporting process, the ease of use during the recovery process, and the ability to customize the app and connect to existing reporting systems. These findings were combined into research personas.
Alex is a police officer who needs to work more effectively with non-profits because stolen bikes are a recurring issue in the community.
Alex's role in the police department involves handling cases related to stolen property, including bicycles. Tampa has a high rate of bike thefts, and Alex often receives reports from residents who have found stolen bikes. However, the process of reporting these found bikes can be cumbersome and time-consuming, requiring the filing of a police report and waiting for the authorities to respond. With limited resources and manpower, it can be challenging to respond to all the reports that come in.
Challenges securing funding and volunteers limit our outreach impact.
Lila is an avid cyclist who needs a more efficient way to report found stolen bikes because the current process is confusing and time-consuming.
Lila is an avid cyclist and frequently bikes around the city. One day, while riding her bike, Lila spotted a bike that looked like the one she had seen on a missing bike flyer. Lila felt a sense of urgency to report the bike to the authorities, as she knew how important bikes were to the people and how devastating it could be to lose one. She reached out to the police and provided them with all the necessary information about the bike, including the location where she had found it. The process was not easy, and Lila faced several obstacles along the way, including a lack of responsiveness from the authorities.
The experience was… just frustrating.
Daniel is a non-profit worker who needs an app to report stolen bikes because he has difficulty working with the police and the public.
Daniel is passionate about biking and believes that everyone should have access to a safe and affordable mode of transportation. As part of his job, Daniel works with the police department to recover stolen bikes and return them to their owners. However, he has faced many challenges in this process. The police department is often too busy to respond to all reports of stolen bikes, and the public is not always aware of his organization and how it can help them. Daniel wants to increase awareness of his organization and make it easier for people to report stolen bikes.
Recovering stolen bikes is slow and complicated, hindering accessibility for community.
A competitive audit was performed on competitor and adjacent apps to provided direction on gaps and opportunities to address.
Click here to view an example competitive audit.
Based on the results of an affinity study, I completed an ideation exercise focusing on three goals:
Make report completion process more user friendly.
Explain or illustrate the process for the user in a simple way.
Bring value to the user that does not exist is current apps.
Combining data from user research, competitive audits, and ideation goals quick sketches and wireframes were used to execute a usability study.
Most users need a very clear and defined path to completing
their report as most never have to file an official legal report
Some users were unable to find familiar functionality that
they expected such as settings for accounts like in other apps
Almost all users immediately asked if the functionality to
report stolen bikes would be added as a feature in the future
After extensive feedback about the user flow, the sign in page was moved to a separate screen so was no confusion as to what action to take. Friendly images and text were added to help further explain the process. Additionally - a overview of the app was added to the bottom with even more detail.
The final high-fidelity prototype presented cleaner user flows for the reporting process. It also enhanced accessibility and added additional information to help guide users.
Special care was taken to ensure that the entire app meets AAA Contrast (Enhanced) ratio of 7:1 for “regular” sized text and 4.5:1 for large scale text.
Buttons, toggles, and other mechanisms all meet the target size inputs of at least 44 by 44.
Website certified by DHS trusted testing program to 503 accessibility standards (AA) required for government and public service use.
Considerations were made for the administrative area for all screen sizes and functionality can be accessed via the native or web app on mobile devices, tablets, and standard computers screens.
While interviewing participants in user studies I was surprised to learn about the enthusiasm for all prospective users of the app to participate even if the only incentive was to better their local community. Hopefully this would lead to a willingness to adopt the app if promoted locally at an appropriate level.
The app makes reporting and recovery of lost, stolen, or abandoned bicycles more faster and more accessible to than the existing methods of reporting (phone calls, PDFs, and web-forms with little mobile support.) It also enables those with visual or hearing impairments to make reports more easily than previous methods.
Review the initial questionnaire taken about the app and
consider adding more features that were highly desired such as the
ability to report stolen bicycles, in-app sign up, and supervisory
functionality.
Conduct additional usability studies to ensure that all features
of the app remain accessible to users.
Continue to update the app as much as possible to keep it fresh
and add other types of reporting features and the functionality to
customize the app further for different law enforcement group
needs.