Designing the Bicycle Rental System for Kish Island By applying User-Centered Design (UCD) approach

Bicycle riding is one of the attractions in Kish Island that is known as an entertainment and enjoyable sport. Moreover, it is beneficial to the environmental goals and tourism industry. For this aim, the bicycle rental system is provided by nineteen bicycle stations that have been distributed all around the island by Kish Free Zone Organization; also, to spread the bike riding culture and increase the required safety for cyclists, the 51 km bike lane has been established along the beach. Mostly, the bicycle rental system in Kish is used by tourists who need to rent bicycles from one of the bicycle rental stations. Despite the attractions of this rental bicycle system, there are lots of weaknesses and shortcomings which have led to users' dissatisfaction. So, it seems that the available system needs to be improved. In the design of current system, some factors haven't been considered, such as corporate identity, visual attraction, functional connection, and practical rental service; also, safety of the system for users and bicycles, and suitability of the applied materials in stations' structure haven't been considered plentifully. To improve the available system, including rental service, and bicycle rack, this study was carried out. For encouraging people to use the rental system and improving the bike riding culture, new concept should satisfy users' needs and wants. Furthermore, the abilities of users and limitations of the context should be considered in generating new concepts. For this aim, User-Centered Design (UCD) was chosen as the approach of this study. During the study, Kansei Engineering method was employed to obtain the design parameters. Forty people were asked to explain their expectations of the system. One hundred and ten Kansei Words were collected and reduced to twenty one words by employing Seven Point Scale Rating Questionnaire. According to their affinity, the words were categorized and four Higher-level Kansei Words, including Attractiveness, Comfort, Safety, and Durability were defined. For obtaining the system's properties, a benchmark table was prepared and for identifying the design database, the trend board of users was created. By analyzing and evaluating the images of this trend board the most user-friendly colors, forms, and textures were found and gathered as the design pallet. Regarding the Kansei Words, collected properties and design database (pallet), several concepts were generated for both bicycle rack and rental service. Finally, one concept was developed. The new rental system was evaluated by Kansei Engineering method. Thirty users were selected to evaluate the new rental system in a showroom. For this aim the model of the new bicycle rack and storyboards of interacting with new rental system were presented in the showroom. In this evaluation, the participants were asked to evaluate the Higher-level Kansei words in the new concepts by Seven Point Scale Rating Questionnaire. The results showed how much the relationship between the Higher-level Kansei Words and the attributes of the new rental bicycle system is strong in users' opinion. Due to the users' satisfaction, it was concluded that the new concept could meet its users' expectations.