A day in the life of an e-bike designer: Q&A with VanMoof’s Marjolein Deun

As a growing number of people decide to switch careers to work on climate change, we’re running a series of interviews with people in climate-related jobs about their day-to-day work. In this interview, we spoke with Marjolein Deun, industrial design lead at VanMoof, the Amsterdam-based e-bike company.



Fast Company: Transportation is one of the biggest sources of emissions in cities. If you think about the challenge of how to get more people to choose to bike when they run an errand rather than driving, how can better bike design help, versus the need for better infrastructure like bike lanes?



Marjolein Deun: It’s a combination of both. We do notice that a lot of cities are becoming more bicycle friendly. But also, by [redesigning an electric bike] that makes it super easy for a user to just go from A to B without thinking, and also makes it easy to transport your children or groceries, I think that’s one of the big steps to improve cycling within the city.



Marjolein Deun [Photo: VanMoof]



FC: What’s an example of the research you do to make a bike that’s easier to use?



MD: Sometimes we go to different spots and observe riders and how they behave. For example, we observe how people lock their bikes in different cities all over the world. In Amsterdam, we see that people use extra chain locks, which costs them a lot of time. Some people can’t be bothered to use it and go into shops and risk getting their bike stolen, but most people actually take a lot of time to lock their bikes. That’s where we made an innovation in our bikes—a keyless lock. You click a button in your rear wheel and your bike is locked. You don’t have to think about it, and when you come back to your bike, you can just press the button and ride off without the whole issue of unlocking your bike.



FC: That’s interesting. How does it know that you’re the owner?



MD: It’s linked to your phone; and when you go to your bike, it knows you’re there, and it wakes up and you can leave. If you don’t have your phone, there’s also a backup code [that you can enter] via the buttons on the handlebar.



[Photo: VanMoof]



FC: When you have an insight like that—observing how hard it is for people to lock up their bikes—what’s the design process after that point?



MD: The design process always starts with research—user research, what’s on the market, and what’s the actual issue that people have. And after we’ve collected all the data and we kick off a project, we start development. If we look at a project that’s an entirely new bike, then we might look ahead two years. We have a team in Taipei and one in Amsterdam. Due to the time difference, in the mornings we often align and work on a specific feature—they explain what they found in tests, or if there’s anything new coming from suppliers. We test different things in the riding conditions with our riders here [in Amsterdam]. In the afternoon, we continue on development . . . ideation, sketching in various ways, and then we converge a bit more and get into conceptualization and making prototypes. When we get to a point where we think we can’t ideate too much more, we hand it over to the engineering team in Taipei.



[Photo: VanMoof]



FC: What are some ways that you test the bikes?



MD: There is of course a lot of certification and testing in the whole bike industry, but we thought these tests were not enough for us. So we really took it to the extreme. We wanted to create a product that’s very durable, so that’s why we created our own tests. We have our own testing labs, where, for instance, we have the bike under high pressure water or we have them in a dust chamber for a couple of days, or we have vibration testing. After the product is on the market, we also make sure that the serviceability is taken into account.



FC: What’s another example of a feature that you’ve added to make it easier or more convenient to ride?



MD: We have a boost button, which means that if you press a button you can quickly [get through] a traffic intersection, for instance. Sometimes you want to get ahead of the traffic. There’s also an alarm on your bike, so if someone tries to touch it, that will go off. [If it’s stolen], there’s tracking with GPS, so you will always be able to see where your bike is. Then we also have “bike hunters” who can actually get your bike back.



[Photo: VanMoof]



FC: Are you seeing evidence that better bike design makes people less likely to drive?



MD: We did some research and we proved that after people bought a VanMoof, it significantly decreased the amount of use of the car. That was quite a nice result.



FC: What do you think is possible for the future of bikes in cities? How much can they begin to replace cars?



MD: You already see that a lot of cities have car-free zones at the moment and are really pushing for it. I’m in Amsterdam, and here, of course, it’s over the top. But it’s really nice to see that it’s also happening in other cities over the world. I think for the whole bike industry, it has taken a long time to really start innovating in [design]. For cars, there’s been money and people have always been innovating; but for the bike industry, it’s only started now. I think it will become better and better. There’s so many new innovations in the last few years in the bike industry. So I do think that people will begin to see more value in using a bike instead of a car.



[Photo: VanMoof]



FC: How did you first get into this work?



MD: Growing up, my dad was always trying to fix cars and creating new things. And I was very interested by that. So then I found an education that exactly fit these interests—I could become an engineer and a designer, both in one. I found, being in the product-design field, that of course a lot of products that are created are just used one time and then thrown away. I really wanted to create a durable and high-quality product that will last for a long time.