urban mobility

My role

table research, group work, field research, matrix and clustering methods, brainstorm session

More details

The project was a 4-month research into bicycle phenomenon in the city of Cologne. We formulated two questions: “How people are connected with a bicycle?” and “How bicycle influence our daily life?”. To answer them, we used design matrix method. It gives a possibility to represent visually and structure all needed information related to the topic. During the working process the matrix was edited several times and at the end, we have got two documents to work with.

After the field research and matrix phase, we decided to lead research towards the topic of Waiting time. We analyzed data and conclude our observation into five main behaviors of the cyclist while waiting on the road. Our questions were: “What is the purpose of waiting?”, “How people use environment during this time?”, “What they do during the waiting?” and “Are there any objects helping in this situation?”.

We put three categories according to periods of time: short-term, middle-term, long term. And conclude all the information in the matrix or "working map". For the last phase of the project we narrowed down our research direction into middle-term waiting and its connection to safety.

We described potential situations, when cyclists might wait from 5 to 10 minutes and leave bicycle without a locker, e.g. “use ATM”, “Kiosk”, “To take away”, to make a break for a phone call, check baby, or when you need quick stop during the delivery work. Generally, we see the difference in parking behavior/purpose of stop/usage of available methods to secure the bicycle. In the end, we found a new area for design ideas and concluded them in sketches. The project was made in collaboration with Kailang Huang (NTUST, Taiwan).