Understanding Saddle Comfort: A Rider Experience Study

Saddle comfort is usually measured — pressure mapping, contact area, biomechanical load. This project asked a different question: how do riders actually experience and describe comfort, in their own terms?

During my internship at Shimano Pro, I ran a research project studying how cyclists perceive saddle adjustments through structured prototype testing and rider feedback sessions. Using explorative prototyping with a mental model tool to extract first user insights from five tests and iterate three revision prototypes before the final version. The final prototype was tested by six experienced cyclists using semi-structured interviews and body-mapping probes to collect quantitative and qualitative data to support my design hypothesis.

The focus stayed on subjective, first-person experience rather than physical measurement alone — treating comfort as something riders construct and articulate, not just something that can be measured off their body.

This research fed into Shimano Pro's product development process and helped me to develop my own product development workflow.