ID4250 Exploring Interactions

Sophie Boonen 4041399

Design & research exploration report

Content
Introduction............................................................................................................1 1 Goals....................................................................................................................2
1.1 Design goal & interaction vision 1.2 Research goal 1.3 Research questions

2 Activities..............................................................................................................4
2.1 First observations 2.2 Interviews with users 2.3 Idea generation session with project buddies 2.4 Design interventions clinic 2.5 Design interventions at location 2.6 Interviews with experts

3 Results...............................................................................................................12
3.1 Current bicycle parking at Delft central station 3.2 Design interventions

4 Conclusions.......................................................................................................18
4.1 Answers to research questions 4.2 Evaluation of design interventions 4.3 Additional findings 4.4 Direction 4.5 Plan for further design & research explorations

5 Appendices........................................................................................................20
Appendix A: Interview questions users Appendix B: Interview questions & answers design interventions at location Appendix C: Interview with expert at Delft Bouwt

Introduction
Each day, a lot of students travel by bicycle to and from the railway station of Delft. A lot of them park their bicycle somewhere near the station, even more in the weekend when the students are travelling to their parents. This project is about exploring the interactions of students before, during and after the bicycle parking process at the railway station of Delft. In this Design & research exploration report the goals, activities, results and conclusions of the project until now are discussed.

1 Goals
1.1 Design goal & interaction vision
The current bicycle parking lot at the railway station of Delft has been moved several times and the it does not seem to have enough capacity for the amount of bicycles that there are. This makes people park their bicycles at other places near the station, which frustrates both the municipality and civilians of Delft that live near the station. For this project, the design goal is to generate a satisfying and calm experience for students parking their bicycle at the railway station of Delft. The figure on the right page gives an impression on how a student parks his bicycle in the current situation. The inspiration source for this project will be an interaction vision, which consists of two words: smooth certainty.

1.2 Research goal

Although there is already an impression that the bicycle parking experience is not optimal in the current situation and can be improved, there has to be done research to find out the interactions that are going on and the possible problems that are there. To reach the design goal it is important to know how people actually feel and think about the current situation, both the users and the stakeholders. The research goal will be to gain insight in the demands and needs of the users and stakeholders.

1.3 Research questions

The following two main research questions will form the basis of the design and research activities. What is the role of the municipality and other stakeholders involved in the situation? To know the demands and needs of the municipality and other stakeholders, it must be found out in what way they are involved in the current situation. One phenomenon that plays a role in this research question is the fact that there is a feeling of misunderstanding between students and non-students. How do the users experience the current situation and do they want a change? Do students actually find the current situation problematic? And if yes, why do they experience it as problematic? How and where do they currently park their bicycle at the station? Do the students already have a kind of solution themselves? And how would they like to see the situation change in the future? The answer to all these questions will help gaining more insight in the demands and needs of the users. The phenomena that are related to these questions are that time is a very important value for people in the modern society, students most of the time do not have much money, people are often in a hurry when 2 moving to the railway station and the trains (NS) can easily influence peoples mood.

2 Activities
In the Design and research exploration plan several design and research activities were described, such as observations at the location, interviews with users and experts and testing design interventions at the location. In this section all the actual activities that have taken place in this first cycle are described.

2.1 First observations

The first research activity took place in the beginning of the project. Since the location of the project are the parking places near the train station of Delft, me and my buddy went to the train station to do observations. We went to several parking places near the station which are shown on the map below. Goal: Method: Time: current interactions in kaart brengen observing and taking photographs 30 minutes

2.2 Interviews with users

Having a first view on the current interactions during the bicycle parking process, it is now time to get something to know about the feelings and thoughts of the users themselves. To get to know the users, me and my buddy decided to conduct several interviews with students of our university. For each interview, we started with my questions (in Dutch or English, depending on the nationality of the participant) and then the questions of my buddy. The interview questions and answers can be found in appendix A. Goal: Method: Time: Participants: mapping the thoughts and feelings of the user about the current and preferred situation short interviews person to person 5 minutes per interview 7

2.3 Idea generation session with project buddies

All of our group members had done some first observations and interviews with users. We decided to do an idea generation session together to have some input for design interventions. On the right page the sheet with the ideas is shown. Goal: Method: 6 Time: generating input for design intervention clinic generative idea generation session on paper 30 minutes

2.4 Design interventions clinic

With the first insights on the situation and the users and input for design interventions it is time to test some first ideas. As a group of 5 cyclists, we decided to do the research clinic together in which we tested some design interventions. I decided to conduct some tests with signs that indicate free places at the parking lot in front of our faculty. One of the group members had the role of user, the other three were asked to hold the signs and observing while doing that. The design interventions that I tested are shown below. On the right there are some pictures of the setting of this research. Goal: Method: Time: test design interventions scenario role play with group members 30 minutes per person

2.5 Design interventions at location

After testing the design interventions in a role play situation with students acting as users, the next step is to apply one of the design interventions at the location and test it with real users. The design intervention that was tested was the Free spot! sign. Due to the differences in preferred situation (day and night), my buddy and me decided to do the research separately. I went to the station on a Wednesday afternoon and hang the signs on the racks of bicycles, followed by observing what happened and asking some short questions to three users. The interview questions and answers can be found in appendix B. Goal: Method: Time: changing the interactions through design interventions add design intervention, observing, interviewing 20 minutes

2.6 Interviews with experts

After conducting the research at the station I went to the Delft Bouwt centre, which is near the railway station. At that centre information is provided to the civilians of Delft about the construction work in Delft, mainly at the railway area. There I had an interview with an expert who is part of the project that focuses on the new bicycle parking lot at the future railway station. He gave me some new insights on what the thoughts are behind the current parking lot and what the future one will look like and what ideas the new situation is based on. Some renders of the new railway station and its parking lot are shown below and on the right (below), the picture left above is the current parking lot.

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3 Results
All the design and research activities result in a lot of findings, which I will describe here. I will start with insights in the current interactions that take place, which came from the first observations and the interviews with users. Then I will describe the findings that came out of the design interventions, both from the clinic as well as from the real user situation. The summary of the interview at Delft Bouwt can be found in appendix C, as mentioned in the previous chapter.

3.1 Current bicycle parking at Delft central station

There are several bicycle parking places near the railway station of Delft. The total amount of all these places is 7.000. The most used parking place is the parking lot at the front side of the station (centre side). People feel not satisfied about the current bicycle parking experience. The problems that occur during the parking process of their bicycle at the station are shown in the figure.

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3.2 Design interventions

The observations that I made during the research are shown in the right column, the left one shows the findings based on the observations and on the feedback of my project buddies.

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4 Conclusions
All the design and research activities result in a lot of findings, which I will describe here. I will start with insights in the current interactions that take place, which came from the first observations and the interviews with users. Then I will describe the findings that came out of the design interventions, both from the clinic as well as from the real user situation. The results of the interview at Delft Bouwt can be found in appendix

4.1 Answers to research questions

The municipality tries to control the chaos of bicycles at the station through legislation about where it is allowed to park your bicycle and where not. They made signs that explain the rules to the users and placed them at several spots near the station. Bicycles that are parked outside the allowed places will be moved to the Nijverheidsplein or to the depot in Delft or The Hague. They think that people just have to deal with the current situation until the new station is build. Most civilians of Delft just want to have their streets clean and free of bicycles. The residents who live near the station, especially in the Coenderstraat, experience a lot of nuisance from the bicycles. I conclude this from findings of the research report The parking of bicycles in the city centre of Delft (3rd of April 2012) and from a discussion on the website of Delft op Zondag (15th of April 2012) The students themselves, which are the users in this project, do experience a lot of problems during the bicycle parking process at the station of Delft. To their opinion there should be more parking places, better racks (both ergonomically for themselves as well as fitting for their bikes), better indication of where and how to park your bicycle and what to do when its moved. Almost all the participants in the research blamed the municipality for the problems, some of them mention the fact that the students themselves could also do something about it. The users definitely want a change.

4.2 Evaluation of design intentions

The design interventions that I tested were all signs that should help the user to have an indication of how the parking lot looks like, how many free places there are left, where not to go and where specifically to go to park his bicycle. The design interventions test at the faculty went pretty well, because of the collaboration with my team buddies. The main conclusion that I draw from the design intentions were that the more specific the signs were, the more clear it got for the user. Another conclusion was that sometimes the user ignores the signs, because he can also look for himself where to park his bicycle (he

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does that automatically) and he already knows the place. The design intervention that I tested at the station was the Free spot! sign, because that was the most specific sign an the most useful, which came out of the earlier test. The design intentions were tested on an afternoon at 16:00 oclock, which I expected to be a busy time at the station but that was not the fact. It was hard to find some people who actually were on their bike, and a lot of them were in a hurry. Though I asked 4 people questions about the sign and the conclusion that I can draw is that whatever the intervention is, people have to get the feeling that they can trust it. Also it will work best if the intervention is really visible so that people are more aware of it.

4.3 Additional findings

There are some findings that I did not mention in this Research and design explorations report, but those can be found in my workbook. Some additional findings were the talk with the expert Robert Korteland on the 27th of September and an observational research at another railway station in the Netherlands where there is also a lot of construction work going on.

4.4 Direction
The direction for my project is that it will from now on be focused on the main bicycle parking lot at the station, and I will design specific for that. Also I will specifically design for it as it is in the current situation, so the temporary parking lot.

4.5 Plan for further design & research explorations

The further explorations will more focus on interaction between users. Until now I did only conduct research in which the users only interacted with signs they saw, but I want to make them more aware of other users. I want to find out whether the situation can be improved through the users themselves instead of through the municipality. In the next phase I will start with another brainstorm session in which I want to generate new ideas for design interventions, preferably together with my buddy or the whole cyclists group.

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Appendix A: Interview questions users

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Appendix B: Interview questions & answers design interventions at location

I hang the signs Free spot! on the racks, above a free spot. In total I hang 3 signs at the same time, in different rows. Then I stood at the end of the parking place to observe the people and to ask them some short questions. Participant 1 Did you notice the signs? Yes, I did. Very nice! Did they help you finding a free place for your bicycle? Yes, but it would be better if there was something more striking, such as a light. Participant 2 Did you notice the signs? I saw them, but I did not really look at it. Why was that? I did not know who had put them there, they did not really look professional to me so I did not know if I could trust them.. Participant 3 Did you notice the signs? Yes. Did they help you finding a free place for your bicycle? No, I already saw a free spot myself which was closer to me so I used that one. Participant 4 Did you notice the signs? Yes i did. Did they help you finding a free place for your bicycle? Uhm.. no not really. I just placed my bicycle somewhere against a rack or something. It really is a chaos here, I think that those signs are not really a solution.

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Appendix C: Interview with expert at Delft Bouwt

Bicycle parking at railway station of Delft They are now building a bicycle parking lot under the ground, in between the platforms (at -2 level) and the bus station (at ground level). The parking lot will consist of 5.000 parking places for bicycles, divided in two levels, similar to the current parking area at the station. Later on the parking lot will be expanded with another 2.000 places, at the same level under the ground. Way of parking We are still working on plans of how the parking lot will actually look like. There have to be made decisions on how the racks will look like and how the infrastructure of the parking lot will be. We are talking with bicycle parking experts from the USA, which actually came by today. There are a lot of new innovative techniques on bicycle parking, we want to implement one of those ideas to make the parking of the bicycles the most easy for the people. The current parking area Yes, the current bicycle parking area at the station is a chaos. They say that there are actually about 7.000 parking places in total, all parking places near the station together, just like before the construction work. But I doubt if that is true. One of the ways to keep control over all those bicycles are the white lines around the parking areas, which indicate where to park your bicycle. Those lines are even over here in front of our office. Problem: amount of places The 7.000 parking places that are provided will not be enough for all the bicycles. There are so many bicycles in Delft, the parking of them will be a big problem, even in the future station. They want the area around the station to be bicycle free, it will not be allowed to bike in front of the station and the underground parking lot will be the only place where it is allowed to park your bike at the station. This is a really ambitious plan, but maybe not very realistic. The solution may be in concepts which look at other ways to reduce the amount of bicycles, for example bike sharing. The knowledge of the TU Delft and companies could be combined and turned into a solution for the bicycle parking problem.

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