The Crime Stoppers WA team have developed an exciting new online tool to help combat bike theft and return lost or stolen bikes to owners … It’s a game changer and empowers bike owners to protect their bikes.

The Bikelinc story began when Crime Stoppers WA, a long standing client, called to see if there was an ‘easy way’ to allow bikes to be linked to owners within the Crime Stoppers WA site.

The idea of getting bikes back to owners had been something CEO, Vince Hughes and our team had casually discussed after one of our team members experienced bike theft first hand. This came to the forefront for Vince when the WA Police discussed the spike in bike crime and the unfathomable amount of bikes they send to auction because they can’t reunite them with their owners. An idea was forming…

From ideation to concept – the methodology

Although it would have been fine to add this as a feature on the Crime Stoppers WA website, all parties agreed it was worthwhile doing a deeper study into this and chose to develop a website scope with our team. We needed to ensure that this was going to be a tool that was suitable to both bike owners and WA Police.

We’ve worked with Crime Stoppers WA on a number of projects following this method, so the path to success was well practiced.

We worked through following steps;

As with any client, we start with a series of interactive workshops to;

  • Step 1: Define the purpose of the website or product
  • Step 2: Define and refine the personas
  • Step 3: Consider the user stories
  • Step 4: Develop a product structure

We then take the findings from the workshops to our whole team and;

  • Step 5: Sketch and develop the concept, refining the structure if required
  • Step 6: Create a brand identity and/or palette – either in house or with a suitable branding partner.
  • Step 7: Develop a scope of works for key parties to sign off – which sometimes is sent off for funding.
  • Step 8: Create the Product!

We worked alongside Crime Stoppers WA and WA Police to shape the tool – and had amazing support and expert advice along the way from Cycling WA, Crime Stoppers WA board. Special kudos to our branding partner, Propeller Brands.

Launching to market

Bikelinc allows bike owners to setup a profile and add their bikes to a virtual bike rack, tagging them as safe, lost or stolen. The bikes themselves can be accessed by WA Police using a search dashboard where they type in the serial number of a bike, bike owner’s driver’s licence or Police IR number.

Find out more about the project here.

Do you have an idea for a tool, website or business that needs fleshing out? Don’t hesitate to get in touch and see how we can help you.