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Bikeoff Performance Rating

To assist designers in understanding and negotiating the troublesome tradeoffs involved in designing a lock that is easy to use and resistant to abuse (breakage) Bikeoff has created a rating for locks. It considers both ‘user centered’ issues such as weight, portability, and ease of operation and ‘abuser centered’ considerations relating to resistance to abuse such as vandalism, breakage and theft.

The Bikeoff rating system gives a mark out of ten for a lock’s performance in relation to the three user centred considerations. These ‘user values’ are shown in the tables in green (where ten denotes the best performance and zero denotes the worst performance).

We have also given a mark out of thirty for a lock’s resistance to abuse. These ‘abuse values’ are shown in red (thirty denotes the highest performance, zero the poorest). In this way qualities relating to use and abuse can be considered on equal terms as each lock will have a ease of use rating that is the sum of its performance in relation to user centred issues (out of thirty) and a resistance to abuse rating (out of thirty). The sum of the ‘user values’ and the ‘abuser values’ give the Bikeoff final rating, and this method offers a unique contribution to evaluating locks. Itcan be understood as follows:

Bikeoff ratings given in green denote locks with a user bias.

Bikeoff ratings given in red denote an abuser bias.

Those locks that are balanced in terms of user accommodation and abuser resistance are yellow.

Additionally, in an attempt to assist designers in understanding the relationship of a lock to “context of use”, we have considered the relationship between the effort required of a user versus the risk of abuse. For example, a user that intends to park their bike close by, and in their clear sight, would reasonably favour a lock that is easy to carry and use over one that is difficult to carry and use but very resistant to attack.

INSERT IMAGE OF 2 TABLES ONE THAT SHOWS A LOCK THAT IS USER CENTRED AND ONE THAT SHOWS A TABLE THAT IS ABUSER CENTRED.
TABLES TO HAVE ARROWN INDICATING THE FEATURES DESCRIBED IN THE TEXT ABOVE.

ADAM TO GO THROUGH THE TYPOLOGIES AND EDIT AND CHECK AND ADJUST TABLES.