Simulated Problem: Bruce Bikes website is outdated. They are pivoting their standard bicycle company to specialize in electric bikes and eco-friendly options for bicyclists. The company would like to update their logo and have a more responsive website to create a seamless experience for their customers to showcase this newly released electric bicycle. The company is based in Detroit, MI. They would like the design to feel bold, creative, and industrial.
Goal: Design Bruce Bikes logo and lay the foundation for their website that has an eye-catching design, clear hierarchy structure, and seamless user experience.
Your ideal customer is a man named Leo. Leo is in their mid 40’s and lives with friends. Leo is a high school graduate and works on a small team. Leo lives in Detroit, is very familiar with your product, and is very Eco / Environment / Waste-conscious.
Through the ideation processs, we have uncovered that the design should express the culture of Detroit, while focusing on an eco-friendly persona. Key words include: Industrial, Electric, and Artistic - focusing on Graffiti. This is the guiding principle of the logo and design for the website.
Detroit is an up-and-coming, moderately bike-friendly city with a flat terrain, wide streets, and a growing network of dedicated greenways, though it remains car-centric with varying infrastructure quality.
Bike Lanes: Detroit features over 175 miles of bike facilities, including roughly 50 miles of protected lanes and 120+ miles of unprotected or sharrow lanes.
Major Trails: Key traffic-free paths include the Dequindre Cut (a 2-mile paved greenway connecting Eastern Market to the riverfront) and the Detroit Riverwalk, which stretches nearly 5 miles along the water.
Future Projects: The expanding Joe Louis Greenway aims to create a continuous 27.5-mile loop connecting Detroit to neighboring communities.
Resources:
Detroit Electric Bike Company
https://www.detroitebikes.com/
What they offer
A single-brand e-bike manufacturer/retailer based in Troy, MI, founded 2020. Six named models (Cruiser, Rocket A, Rocket B, MJ Special, Scootsta, Demos), positioned around "American craftsmanship" and Detroit manufacturing heritage. They sell direct - showroom test rides, phone sales, and online shipping for orders over $2,000.
Flow & layout
Fairly conventional e-commerce structure: hero > product carousel > feature highlights ("Why Choose Us") > brand story > contact/showroom > footer nav. The path from homepage to a specific product is short (2 clicks). Phone number is persistent in header and footer, which fits a business that wants to convert by call or visit, not just cart checkout.
Heuristic Review
Recognition over recall: Six near-identical bike names (Rocket A vs Rocket B, MJ Special, Scootsta) with no visual differentiation cues on the homepage - a user has to click into each to understand what distinguishes them. Naming alone doesn't help decision-making.
Consistency: The product list (Cruiser, Rocket A/B, etc.) is repeated three separate times on the homepage (nav dropdown, carousel, "Our Collection" grid) - redundant rather than reinforcing, and inflates scroll length without adding new information.
Aesthetic and minimalist design: Testimonials section header appears with no actual testimonials rendered - an empty/broken module is a credibility risk on a page whose job is to build trust in a direct-to-consumer purchase.
DMW Electric (Detroit Moped Works)
What they offer
A multi-brand reseller of e-bikes and electric mopeds (Monday Motorbikes, KBO, Himiway, Detroit Bikes, ONYX), operating out of what's described as North America's largest vintage moped shop, now expanding into e-bikes.
Flow & layout
This is the weakest of the three structurally. The homepage is a sequence of brand paragraphs with no clear product grid, pricing, filtering, or comparison mechanism. There's no evident path from "I'm interested in X type of bike" to a specific product page - a user has to already know which brand they want.
Heuristic Review
User control and freedom / navigation: No visible way to browse by bike type, price, or use case - the page structure (brand blurb after brand blurb) forces linear reading rather than letting a user jump to what's relevant to them.
Recognition over recall: Six brands are described in prose with no visual product thumbnails, specs, or prices alongside them - a user has to hold six brand identities in their head with almost no differentiating visual anchor.
Match between system and real world: The page reads like an "About our partners" page rather than a shopping page, even though the meta framing ("sells some of the most popular and affordable models") signals commerce intent. That mismatch between stated purpose and actual page function is a real usability gap.
Error prevention: With no comparison tool and no filtering, a user is likely to leave and comparison-shop elsewhere rather than risk picking the wrong brand blind - this is a conversion leak as much as a UX flaw.
Downtown Bike Shop (Ferndale)
https://www.downtown-bikeshop.com/
What they offer
A general independent bike shop, established 2010, with e-bikes as one category among general biking and repair services. Value proposition centers on service speed (24-48 hour repair turnaround), staff experience (60+ years combined), and brand variety in-stock.
Flow & layout
Heavily image/logo-driven homepage - largely a scroll of brand logos with minimal surrounding text or hierarchy. Navigation (Home, About, Tune Up, Bikes, E-Bikes, Hours/Location, Contact) is reasonably clear in structure, but the homepage itself doesn't guide a user toward any of those sections - it's mostly a static brand-logo wall.
Heuristic Review
Visibility of system status: There's no indication of what's actually in stock, current pricing, or availability - for a shop whose pitch is fast service and in-stock variety, the homepage doesn't surface any of that in real time.
Aesthetic and minimalist design: A long unbroken sequence of brand logo images with no captions or context dilutes the message - a user can't tell at a glance which brands matter most or why they're listed, and the sheer image count slows the page and the scroll.
Flexibility and efficiency of use: "HOURS & LOCATION" and "CONTACT" nav items both link to the same homepage URL rather than distinct sections/pages - this breaks the expectation that distinct nav labels lead to distinct content, and it's a small but real dead end for anyone specifically hunting for store hours.
Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors: The contact form's only feedback is "Thanks for submitting!" with no indication of response time or next steps (compare to Detroit Electric Bike Co., which explicitly states "we'll respond within 24hrs").
