This was my first project as a designer during my UX Design Bootcamp in 2015. As a result, the output looks pretty clunky. But I leave it here anyway, because I still stand behind the research and strategy behind the process. The writing about Tesla made sense back then, and it makes sense now.

The central question: “How to turn early-adopters into brand ambassadors?” is one worth thinking about. Here’s how I once approached it:

The world loves them

• There are over 200 million electric-powered bicycles in China

• In 2012, 120 thousand electric cars sold world-wide.

• In 2012, 29.3 million e-bikes sold world-wide.

  • Most in China

  • 380,000 in Germany

  • 175,000 in the Netherlands

  • 53,000 in the US

Americans are...coming around

Electric bikes, as they’re seen in America now, are a luxury good. They’re a flashier, newer, more expensive remix of a classic technology that already works fine. So why fix what isn’t broken?

This sounds like the same dilemma facing another remixed transportation machine: the electric car. But while part of the “Prius mentality” can be sold on environmental ethics and gas-saving, electric bikes enjoy no such rhetoric (nor the tax breaks). So how do we shed the “lazy,” “pointless,” “luxury” labels that Americans put on e-bikes? How do we get them to cross the early adoption chasm?

Look at Tesla. They are soaring across this chasm, not by preaching practicality, but by embracing their luxury roots and building the coolest, sexiest, highest-quality electric supercar on the planet. They look cool for one, but Tesla’s quality really shines when you sit in the plush leather seat, marvel at the HD touchscreen dashboard, hit the accelerator, and get shot forward with the sort of quickness that causes involuntary sounds to exit your mouth. And since the car is engineless—almost alien in its silence—everyone in the car can hear you whisper “woah.” (If you think that description is over-the-top, just watch this video of Tesla passengers' reactions)

Tesla’s entire sales department has one goal: get people to demo this car.

Electric bikes are similar. Their value becomes clear when you ride them. When the power of your every pedal stroke gets multiplied by 300%. When you fly by everyone on your morning commute. When you climb a steep hill while nonchalantly reading a text message. When you arrive at work with all of the exhilaration but none of the sweat.

We need to borrow a page from Tesla’s playbook and get people on these e-bikes. 

FACT: There is a large segment of the population that refuses to give e-bikes a chance right now. That's ok.

We don't worry about mainstream appeal.

We worry about turning early adopters into proselytizers.

The site works fine as an e-commerce site for traditional bikes and bike accessories.

It does not, however, cater to the needs of our target user who is looking to learn and explore a new type of transportation.

Early adopters do not want to be “sold.” By their nature, these users are explorers, risk-takers, and—when they discover something cool—enthusiastic sharers.

We want to make them ambassadors for our undiscovered brand. This means a more intimate experience of discovery and education.

Ideation and testing

Things got messy. We sketched, doodled, and brainstormed different approaches to the site's content strategy and information architecture.

Wireframes were sketched, tested, and re-sketched. Much coffee was consumed.

Usability testing occurred within Invision amongst our friends and fellow students.

Wireframes

• The core of the site's content strategy relies on Discovery and Education, since they pose the biggest obstacles in our early adopter's journey.

• With this in mind, we start off with broad, beautiful explanatory content (Hero shot, tagline, educational promo video) to draw the user in, and then we move down the page into narrower details (Price and specs comparisons) for further information on this highly-technical product.

• Another thing we emphasized is how easy it is for the user to demo an e-bike. Since Public's strength is in it's brick-and-mortar charm, and an e-bike's value isn't apparent until you try it out; we want to get customers in on the bikes as soon as possible.