Soteria Road Sharing App

In our empathize phase of the design thinking process, we focused on field research and interviews with cyclists and drivers.
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Field Research

We started observing the road on and around cyclist lanes to notice the behaviours of road users. During our observations, we noticed that there was a lack of awareness and enforcement of road rules and regulations for cyclists as opposed to drivers.

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Interviews

We began the process by consulting several industry sources, and by conducting interviews with cyclists. The interviewees often mentioned the lack of respect, safety, and courtesy between cyclists and drivers. One mentioned:
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"Cyclists do not respect the same rules of the road as a vehicle. They have a sense of entitlement. There’s definitely a culture in Toronto where cyclists view themselves as victims. There’s a lack of knowledge or ignorance. Lack of awareness when it comes to road laws and safety, understanding signs, right of way, and yielding"  -Anonymous

another mentioned:

“The tension between cyclists and drivers is unwavering and it’s a cultural issue that extends beyond Toronto. Many drivers seem to believe roads should be exclusively for cars, fearing that bike lanes will extend their commutes and add to congestion. A few bike lanes won’t fix the real, deep-seated issue that makes cycling unsafe — the entitlement felt by drivers. Toronto needs more than infrastructure; it needs a cultural shift.” - Anonymous

We concluded that many cyclists felt unsafe and were unaware of alternate, safer routes of travel as several bike lanes in the city do not merge or connect. We compiled the words people have used into a word cloud to get a visual understanding of the concerns when it comes to road sharing cyclist lanes between cyclists and cars.

Given that our research emerged two main issues: respect and safety; for our ideation process we first asked ourselves: "how might we promote safe and respectful space sharing among all road users on and around cyclist lanes?"

Using the 100 ideas method, we brainstormed as many ideas as we could possibly think of in 15 minutes. Then, we placed these ideas on a graph represented by the axis of user value and technical complexity to come up with a solution that is desirable and feasible. Eliminating the ideas that didn't have enough user value or were too technically complex, we started grouping similar ideas together to create concepts. We kept in mind the universal design principles in order to keep inclusive design at the forefront.

We voted on what we thought was the best idea: an app. For the app concept, we came up with features such as rewarding points based on riding behavior, a riding efficiency tracker, having different types of alerts and information, and planning a safe route for travel.

User Flow

We created a user flow to understand the steps the user would have to take within the platform to move through it.

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Wireframing

A wireframe was created as a low-fidelity prototype before moving onto the high-fidelity version. This was were the features were created visually to get a better understanding of the Soteria experience.

Figma / Framer Prototype

Our team moved onto Figma for design but finalized the prototype in Framer to easily embed the prototype online. We wanted to create a prototype that appeared as functional as possible with input fields and the quick ability to test it on a phone.

Branding

The logo created represents a bike chain. The brand name, Soteria, is the ancient Greek goddess of safety, salvation, deliverance, and preservation from harm.

Interface

The primary touchpoint, the app, allows cyclists around the city to bike safely and promotes respectful space sharing through reward system points. The app creates trip itinerary options based on the users’ selected options and rewards them for their courteous and safe riding during their trip. The app accounts for a tolerance of error by allowing the user to manually edit their journey at any time during their trip. The interface can be used as a community board where fellow cyclists can update each other on new routes or alternate courses, this is demonstrated when the user selects their itinerary and the top pick is highlighted.

Wearables

The app pairs with a smart watch and sends users alerts through vibration patterns; this allows them to interact with the service without taking away their attention from the road.

Journey Review & Rewards

At the end of the user’s trip, they receive a journey review that highlights their riding efficiency, safety, and courtesy; and rewards them points and achievements. Users have the option of seeing their riding data through a long period of time which allows them to notice their patterns and habits.

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Universal Design Principles

The interface is designed with these specific universal design principles in mind:

• Equitable use for different levels of abilities: usable regardless of cycling experience level
• Tolerance for error: user can at any point change their route
• Low physical effort: doesn't require much feedback for the app to seamlessly integrate cycling habits
• Size and space for approach and use: doesn't deter the cyclist ability to bike safely

• An extension of this project would be to add a driver monitoring system to better integrate the behaviour of all road users
• A potential challenge for the implementation of Soteria would be the ability to integrate with existing apps such as Google Maps