For my primary research, I conducted user interviews with 5 different people ages 18-25. These people have previous experience with bike shopping and hobbyist or professional cyclists. I used leading questions to understand their bike shopping experience and recorded their answers to further analyze the data.

Secondary research helped me understand what bike specs users look for, the filtering system they use, and examples of informational architecture. This broadened my knowledge of what shoppers look for when they search for the right fit for their bike.

My competitive audit was conducted for 3 local bike shops in Toronto. The audit included various sized businesses, their unique value propositions, and analyzed ratings for site first impression, interaction, visual design and content. All findings are neatly organized in documents for further ideation purposes.

Through user empathy maps, I was able to define what the user says, does, feels and thinks for each user I spoke with during the interview process. The user wanted to feel more confidence with their purchase. This can be achieved by giving them the right tools for making their selection.

Using the data from my interviews and empathy maps, I created 2 user personas for the common and prioritized pain points that users experience during their shopping process. This helped me define the problem statement for both personas.

After outlining the user flow, I determined that it would be in the best interest of the user to give them two baths to browsing and purchasing the products. One path would be designed for those who know what they’re looking for and want to browse all products (or use the search feature) and the other path would be for those who need more help and can enter their personal measurements to generate bike recommendations.

By compiling a detailed user journey map, I was able to see areas of improvement in the journey and features that the user would find valuable. This motivated me to simplify the bike shopping process by providing an interactive way that shoppers can input their measurements and a formula would present them with bikes that would fit their measurements.

Using the timed written exercise “How might we” I wrote out as many questions that I could think of that would elevate the user experience. This helped me focus on features that the user may value and begin brainstorming ideas.

After outlining value propositions, I was able to answer questions such as “What does the product do?” And “Why should the user care?”. I compiled a list of features that would solve the user’s pain point, which would in turn create value for the user.

Storyboarding defined why and how the product will be useful to the users. By using the problem statement and a goal statement I can see how the user would successfully achieve his goal and what steps (s)he needs to do to get there.