Contextual Inquiry Mini-Project: Citibike Station
1. Observe the Citibike experience in the field
2. Present what worked, what was painful, and possible recommendations
This was a brief, after-class project to try our hand at contextual inquiry. On Monday evening, our team (Marga Javier and myself) observed 2 women and 5 men check out and return Citibikes at the 23rd St. and Broadway Station in Manhattan. We also interacted with the kiosk as new riders to understand the process of checking out a bike for the first time.
All of the people we observed seemed to be regular riders (probably commuters given the time of day). They all had Citibike passes on their keychains and didn't interact with the Citibike kiosk at all.
• If the bike a rider chose wasn't broken, the process was quick and painless. He or she would pull their keys out with their citibike card, pick a bike, adjust the seat, put their bag in the basket and be on their way.
• The "if" above is a big one - many of the bikes were broken, so riders had to try multiple bikes to find one that was working. The way to report a broken bike was also hard to discover - there was a small piece of copy explaining that the "repair" button needed to be pushed, but the repair button itself blended in to the bike dock - it didn't look like a button.
• If the repair button had been pressed, the indicator was a small red light on the side of the bike dock that was hard to see unless you were on the right side of the bike – so someone on the other side of the rack would have to walk all the way around to before they saw the bike they wanted was out of order.
• Make the repair button more discoverable (larger, more button like, a different color) so more riders would use the button to report a broken bike.
• Make the "broken bike" indicator more visible (larger, on top of the bike dock instead of on the side) so it was be easier for riders to easily see which bikes were working and which were broken.
Observations. As non-regulars, it was hard to understand how to take a Citibike for a spin. Though there were a lot of instructions, there were almost too many - on the kiosk, on the digital display, on the side of the kiosk, and on the bikes. It was hard to determine which information was relevant and when.
• Friendly looking digital interface (at least at first) with a large "Get a bike" button
• Lots of instructions (if you had time to read them all...)
• Clearly displayed safety instructions and bell indicators on the bike handle bars
• This process did not feel optimized for the first-time tourist. The instructions were hard to read and convoluted, and it was unclear how to do simple tasks like put additional time on a ride.
• The process requires swiping a credit card to access certain parts of the kiosk, which could be off-putting to a rider who is weary of their card being charged, and how much would be charged. It was also unclear that a card was necessary to proceed except for a flashing light around the card reader.
• The "nearby stations" feature is supposed to show bike availability at other stations. However, the feature was extremely slow to load and unintuitive- the station addresses were listed, but not shown on a map, so it was unclear where they were in relation to the current station, how long it would take to get there, or if there were potential options that weren't shown.
• Simplify the instructions so there's less (and clearer copy)
• Make instructions more legible (and light the surrounding area better)
• Don't require credit card swipe until actual point of payment
• Show a map in the "nearby stations" feature
See our full presentation here.
