An open-ended exploration of bicycling culture and subcultures shaped our recommendations for a redesign of Bicycling Magazine's website.
Bicycling Magazine is a print magazine that caters to bicyclists with an interest in bicycle gear, training, travel and sports news. A website requires a different information architecture than a print magazine because it is interactive rather than linear. Our challenge was to create a new information architecture for the website based on a contextual inquiry into bicycling culture.
Our Process
We interviewed 17 people total. We started with a guerrilla campaign, interviewing a convenience sample of bicyclists on the street and at bike shops, the Caltrain station, and the ferry. We asked open-ended questions about their bicycling activities; what bicycling-related information they wanted, if any; their preferred sources of information for meeting those needs; bicycling magazines they read, if any; and the appeal of magazines.
We quickly saw a divide between bicycling enthusiasts and the practical bicyclists, who bicycle as a cheap and easy means of transportation. The first talked knowledgeably about local trails, different types of bicycling, and bicycling subcultures. The second knew what they needed to know to ride and exhibited little interest in learning more. We sought more out more bicycling enthusiasts as our target users and subject matter experts (SMEs).
SMEs and Bicycling Subcultures
We sought out passionate bicyclists among our acquaintances, at bike shops, and at bicycling coalition booths at street fairs. Ultimately, we interviewed five SMEs: three bike shop employees, a bicycling activist, and a bike company owner. These SMEs told us that among bicycling enthusiasts, there are different bicycling subcultures corresponding to different bicycles and types of riding. For example, mountain bike racers in general have a different culture and different concerns than urban fixed-wheel ("fixie") bicyclists, even though some bicycling enthusiasts participate in both subcultures.
SMEs described a cultural rift between road bicyclists concerned with optimizing their performance through new gear and exercise and other bicycling subcultures more interested in using their bicycles to explore. Bicycling Magazine caters primarily to the first subculture, but we noticed that it also had a great deal of content that might be of interest to the other bicycling subcultures. We created personas that corresponded to these two cultures.
Personas
Lance
The Performer
Larry
The Explorer
Our conceptual model for the information architecture called for emphasizing content that appealed to both performers and explorers in order to attract a new audience without losing the existing audience.
Creating a New Information Architecture
We created cards based on a content sort of Bicycling's website and performed card sorts ourselves and with three of our interviewees, including one SME. We experimented with different categories to organize the content before ultimately settling on an information architecture that emphasized local content. This decision reflected a major finding from the interviews, the value that bicyclists attach to the local.
Wireframes*
Many thanks to the people who kindly consented to be interviewed and to my collaborator on this project, Samuel Sze.
* The inclusion of wireframes in this portfolio does not mean I think wireframes are an advisable part of the UX process. It just means that I have worked with them.