Street Bike Racing Dashboard
A high-performance aftermarket dashboard designed for street bike riders who race, track times, and compete on a national leaderboard.
Role: UX/UI Designer
Tools: Figma
Course: IXD 412, University of Kansas, 2025
Design an aftermarket dashboard for motorcycle enthusiasts that replaces the standard instrument cluster with a connected, customizable display. The device needed to serve a specific market segment, so I chose street bike riders interested in performance, racing, and community competition. The brief required creating personas, defining user requirements, prototyping interface options, and building a working prototype.
The Problem
Existing aftermarket displays for street bikes prioritize either casual riding data or advanced racing metrics, never both. Riders who want to compete informally with friends or track their performance have no cohesive tool that combines real-time race tracking, leaderboard integration, and advanced controls in one interface. The 2011 Kawasaki Z750's existing digital cluster is functional but basic, no race mode, no connectivity, no community features.
The User
Primary market: street bike enthusiasts with a passion for customization and performance, from casual riders to amateur racers.
My persona: Marcus, 28, a street bike rider who loves pushing his limits but has no way to track his times, compete with others, or access race-specific metrics on a single device.
His quote: "Someone who's great at slamming the throttle and flying down a straight."
His frustrations: Existing aftermarket dashboards focus on either street or racing features, never both in one package.
The Process
I researched the motorcycle market across four segments, off-road, street, race, and touring, to identify where the biggest gap existed. Street riding with race aspirations was the sweet spot: a growing community of riders who want performance data and social competition features, but are being underserved by both casual touring dashboards and closed-course racing systems. I also researched the Z750's specs in depth, its 748cc inline-four producing 106hp, top speed of 220 km/h, and existing digital cluster, to understand what the hardware could support and what riders were missing.
Key Design Decisions
Safety and clarity drove every decision, a rider glancing at their dash at 100 mph needs instant, unambiguous information. High contrast was non-negotiable. The Race Mode was designed as a distinct immersive state so riders always know which mode they're in. All controls were sized for use with motorcycle gloves. The leaderboard feature was a differentiator; it gives riders a reason to come back to the device beyond just checking their speed.
Key Features Designed
High-performance display with high-contrast speed and RPM data readable at speed. Race Mode, a full-screen immersive view for live racing with real-time competition data, lap tracking, and friend comparisons. Racing Friends, connect with others on the same device for informal races and leaderboard tracking. Bluetooth connectivity syncs with external devices. Directional controls for gloved-hand navigation. Easy navigation between Ride Mode and Race Mode with large, glove-friendly buttons.
The Full Design
A complete dashboard experience across Street Mode, Race Mode, and leaderboard, designed for gloved hands at speed.
Reflection
This project pushed me into a specialized world I had to research deeply before I could design for it. The balance between information density and clarity at speed was the central design challenge, too much data creates cognitive overload, too little defeats the purpose. I'd push further by conducting user interviews with actual street bike riders, and I'd explore how the interface adapts in different weather and lighting conditions, which are critical constraints for real-world dashboard design.