Revving up motorcycle safety education

An end-to-end website refresh for Ride Forever - a nation-wide motorcycle safety initiative.

08 Jun, 2022

Project context

Ride Forever was born with a mandate to start a conversation with riders, supply valuable information and encourage them to make better choices.

There was realisation that conventional safety messaging and programs weren’t resonating. Motorcyclists knew their passion involved risk and accepted it.

What was needed was a way to engage with riders and find solutions they would take up and endorse. Ride Forever needed to stay motorcycle friendly and really resonate with motorcyclists as a place they wanted to come get information from.

Project objective

To deliver a refreshed RideForever website that optimised user flows and information to increase sign-ups and attendance of motorcycle safety classes.

Approach & deliverables

As we were standing up a refreshed website, rather than a complete overhaul, it was vital for us to keep the existing website as a comparison for customers.

This led us to working on a beta website alongside the existing website so we could measure whether we were hitting the mark or not.

Throughout the project we delivered:

  • Beta website (to eventually swap out as the official site)

  • Supporting UX performance reports to track how features were received

  • Review of information architecture along with revised structure

  • A continuous discovery mechanism

Collaboration

This project was a collaboration between product design, the wider product team and the business stakeholder group.

Output

The final website can be found here: www.rideforever.co.nz

Solving customer problems and meeting business objectives.

Our core project goal was business-focused and tied to key KPI’s: to increase in-person class sign-ups. Secondary goals included more user-focused aims including usability.

More sign-ups

The main goal of the Ride Forever program itself is to increase motorcycle safety on roads of Aotearoa through a range of classes and qualifications around safe riding techniques. The purpose of this refresh was to renew interest in the classes and increase attendance nation-wide.

More awareness and understanding

An insight I identified right at the beginning was that people didn’t really understand what Ride Forever was, it’s purpose, or why it existed. Part of this work was to help the program better communicate it’s goals and purpose.

More time to focus on what matters

The team who manages the content and national program run lean. Less time spent on manual tasks means more time to focus on what really matters: the program itself.

Ongoing engagement & continuous feedback through our closed Beta

Our continuous feedback process:

  1. Feature ideation

  2. Quick fire evaluative testing with customers

  3. Design iterations

  4. Feature release to beta

  5. Quantitative feedback (customer’s opt-in)

  6. Repeat

At the end of the day the website needed to be a place the community wanted to come to get their safety information, and so it was important to gather feedback from the community as the team built new features.

I engaged with the community through various rounds of remote user testing using Figma prototypes. Once myself and the team were comfortable about our approach we would release the feature to the Beta website which housed our feedback mechanisms. This acted as a great way to receive quantitative feedback from a wider audience, there were also opportunities for customers to sign up to our closed user testing.

After each feature release I kept an eye on our feedback mechanisms to see how each feature was landing and whether it needed further revisions. These findings were delivered to the team and key stakeholders through presentations.

While working on a dynamic website like a Beta, having a strong user feedback system is crucial. When dealing with an expressive community keen on sharing feedback, allowing them to give input and witnessing changes based on their feedback makes them feel important and involved in the new website. This approach was key in aligning with the essence of the RideForever program.

Self-service education to increase engagement

The Ride Forever program also offered an online coaching system to complement the on-road coaching classes by acting as a precursor to drum up engagement and sign ups.

The online coaching feature was split into bike types to provide different modules for each specific rider level. The modules included a basis of safety rules and tips presented through videos and imagery.

It was crucial to continue this in the beta by making the modules more engaging and valuable for customers. The team also saw a chance to attract users who might be hesitant to join a class with motorcyclists, like scooter riders.

For this feature, the team used Google Analytics to track module and video content completion rates, helping the small content team focus their efforts effectively.

Consistency is built-in

The website was created by an external agency, so we didn't have any design guidelines or system. Without an in-house design system team, I had to create and document a design system as I went.

I received the branding file from the brand team and used it to create basic design elements. Such as design system foundations, typography, colour ramps and accents.

Establishing a strong foundation enabled me to document design choices effectively, maintain consistency in future features, and align with the development team. It also provided a platform for discussing technical details with developers before implementation.

As I migrated off product, I passed the design system to other designers. This has saved time and maintained design consistency across new features.

Closing thoughts

Overall, this project was positive, being involved in a skilled team on an engaging and innovative product. Throughout the project I gained valuable insights into remote user testing a skill that holds significant relevance in today’s digital landscape. Managing the project presented challenges, particularly in finding the delicate equilibrium between advancing business objectives and incorporating user input to enhance the product offering.

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