I. Assessment(s) Description

For this exercise, students are supposed to pick up one particular bicycle model and will be asked to analyze and redraw the design thinking steps that led to the type in question.

The Invention and the Evolution of the Bicycle: A Design Thinking Exercise

Abstract

This case examines the invention and the evolution of the design of the bicycle. The bicycle is a great example of design for everyday objects and its shape has been characterized by a complex evolution that is still subject to change and proposals of new design alternatives. First, the invention of the bicycle and the evolution of its design are presented by following a socio-technical perspective showing how the design of the bicycle has been shaped by the interplay between the evolution of the available technologies and the emergence of new needs by specific social groups in given times and society. Students are then asked to complete a design thinking exercise by inspecting and disassembling an actual bicycle. Working in teams, students are required to select a specific component and then brainstorm to conduct two exercises: suggest design improvements and identify the impact of those improvements on the actual or prospective users and the complex socio-technical ecosystem of the artifact.

Invention and Reinvention of the Bicycle: An Overview

The Birth of the Modern Bicycle

In the last couple of decades, the bicycle market has been characterized by robust growth driven by many factors including green mobility, the development of e-bikes, and a growing demand for fitness use. Despite its overall size (USD 47.51bn in 2017) and the positive outlook, the consumer market is still highly fragmented and characterized by a large variety of product categories, diverse design and a multiplicity of applications. The market fragmentation is, in fact, a consequence of the unavailability of a dominant design, whose appearance typically comes along with the emergence of a few market dominators (Suarez & Utterback, 1995). Despite its apparent simplicity, a bicycle is a sophisticated and highly flexible machine with complicated physics (Wilson, 2004). A bicycles design involves facing a number of non-trivial technical challenges that have been solved in a huge variety of ways at different times and places during the history of this industry.

While bicycles have been around for a while and we are all quite familiar with this product, modern bicycles are fairly different from earlier models. The first documented attempt to design and build a bicycle was performed by Karl von Drais, an employee of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, at the beginning of the 19th century. 1 The draisine could be ridden as a modern bicycle but had no pedals or chains and the vehicle was propelled directly by the riders legs. The frame and wheels were made of wood and there were no tires, but the draisine could be driven through a steering device anticipating the modern handlebar.

In less than one century, the variety of designs available on the market skyrocketed , although not all the models achieved the same level of popularity. The pedals attached directly on the wheel hub were one of the most significant additions to the design in those years. Improvements in metallurgy allowed wood to be replaced with metal and make the frame lighter. Reduced weight and the addition of the pedals made the bicycle faster compared to the original draisine. The only way to increase speed, absent the tires and the modern propelling system based on a transmission chain and gears, was to enlarge the size of the front wheel. The high wheel bicycle became very popular and started to be used for the first bicycling races. However, the high wheel design was extremely unsafe, despite the addition of a braking system. A safer alternative would emerge by the end of the 19th century through the safety bicycle, the progenitor of modern bicycle design. The safety bicycle had two wheels of the same size and a chain drive. The addition of the tire by John Dunlop was the final step toward something we recognize to be the base design of most modern bicycle models.

This basic history of the bicycle can give the impression that its design evolution was a linear progression leading from more primitive to better and more advanced developments driven by technological improvement. This linear narrative, however, neglects a number of important events that marked the emergence of the modern bicycle.

First, the linear evolution does not explain why, at some point, there were so many different competing designs on the market. Second, it does not account for why some clearly inefficient or under-performing solutions were more popular than others that were more technically sound. Finally, the linear narrative completely obscures the resistance to the adoption of innovations and gives the false impression that better technology is accepted and becomes popular without friction. Let us then take another and deeper look at the history of the modern bicycle by using a perspective based on the social construction of technology (SCOT).

The Social Construction of the Bicycle

According to Bijker et al. (1989), technology is socially constructed. Without neglecting the importance of technological advancement, social constructionists criticize the view according to which technological evolution is determined by technological progress and argue instead that the evolution of technology is deeply shaped by human action and that it cannot be understood outside of the social and cultural context in which it takes place.

SCOT explains the variety of competing bicycle designs at the same time through the necessity of developers to address multiple needs expressed by different social groups. This multiplicity determines the variation in the available design. Different social groups have different interpretations of a technology (they see different problems/needs), so inventors propose different solutions to different problems, some of which end up being selected as the best. For instance, the high wheel bike was a device for young, bold men who used the bicycle for racing purposes and did not care much about safety. Women, however, at that time were not supposed to engage in manly sporting activity, plus were not allowed to wear trousers, so they needed a different design. Other demographics, such as the elderly, had a safety problem with the high wheel bike. Therefore, new designs emerged with technological solutions to enhance safety, such as lower wheels, braking systems, smaller forks and chain drive. As new social needs surfaced, the bicycle mutated from an elite product for young, sporty, upper-class men into an affordable, mass transportation vehicle. While the bicycle was undergoing this transition, a variety of different designs were possible, none of which was necessarily better, because each was serving particular needs that were not experienced by other social groups.

Why did the safety bicycle become the dominant design? The addition of tires ensured that this model would become mainstream. Tires made the bicycle both more comfortable and faster (a model before the tire era was nicknamed the boneshaker). Interestingly though, tires were initially rejected because they were considered ugly by the standards of the existing bike aesthetics. It took the startling racing superiority of the bicycle equipped with tires, along with the diffusion of cycling as a popular sport and mass entertainment through national stage races such as the Tour de France or the Giro dItalia, to forge a new aesthetic around the legendary gestures and epic road challenges of the new bicycle heroes: the professional sport cyclists.

We know different type of bicycles such as the foldable bicycle, racing bike, city bike and mountain bike.

Landoli, L., & Juszczak, M. (2020). The Invention and The Evolution of the Bicycle: A Design Thinking Exercise. SAGE Publications: SAGE Business Cases Originals.

1) Choose the type of bicycle you want to study:

a. Foldable Bicycle

b. Racing Bike

c. City Bike

d. Mountain Bike

After picking up the type of bicycle you want to do apply the exercise on, students are asked to answer the following questions, to draw the stages and understand what led to the product improvement they choose.

According to the type of bicycle you choose, kindly answer the following questions, the aim is to apply the steps that led to create the solution (different type of bysicle, each type was the conclusion of different design thinking, we search to redraw the steps)

2) Precise what type of bicycle you choose to study.

3) Who are the consumer of the bicycle in question? What do you know about the consumer in question? How they behave? What are his or her needs that are not satisfied with the typical bicycle? (15 points)

4) What are the problems of the consumer while using the typical bicycle? What are challenges they are facing? (15 points)

4.1Identify a component or subsystem in the bicycle and explain the functionalities that it is supposed to support. (10 points)

4.2What is the need that the selected component addresses and how important is effectively addressing that need in terms of customer satisfaction? (10 points)

5) We already know the solution, as for the type of bicycle you already selected at the beginning of the exercise, fill the proposition value canvas. (20 points)

6) Mention one stakeholder that could be important to highlight when creating the solution (governmental regulations, sellers, suppliers, etc.). Mention how the solution affects and is affected by your selected stakeholder. (15 points)

7) Using the history of the bicycle as a framework, how do you think the design will further evolve in the near future? Suggestion: start with user categories and identify problems these users are trying to solve. (15 points)

II. Assessment(s) Summary Table(s)

Individual Assessment : Case Study
Task 1: Students are required create a new product or service	(S.1) Understand the key elements of psychology in creativity and new product development; (C.1) Apply a set of tools to systematize the generation of ideas (systematic creativity);
Task 2: Students are required to understand the market and the costumers in question	(JS.1) Create vision that gets buy-in from senior management, colleagues and entrepreneurs; (JS.2) Determine consumer adoption requirements, roles and behavior when it comes to new concepts and products, and understand how to take them into consideration to avoid innovation failures; and to fulfil the real needs. (S2) Identify latest consumer and market trends and design products/services to match them and expecting coming trends and even creating them.
Task3: Students are required to apply design thinking	(C.2) Conceive radically innovative solutions by understanding who their real stakeholders are and what they care about; (S.3) Design, test, and build new products and services, with clear value propositions in a systematic, efficient, and practical way; making the maximum users life better. (JS.3) Enhance creativity, teamwork skills and entrepreneurship mindset.