How do you ensure bags are safe in bars and cafés without installing intrusive security measures that destroy the relaxed atmosphere? A pilot study in London suggests that some simple, unobtrusive and attractive design interventions can make a real difference.
The Stop Thief Chair and Grippa Clips, created by the Design Against Crime Research Centre, are designs to help bar and café customers take care of their bags and protect them from thieving fingers. The bag-holding slot at the front of the chairs allows straps to be sat on, with bags hanging safely below the chair. Similarly, the Grippa Clips are designed to secure bags to table edges or vertical surfaces, where they can be easily seen.
The Grippa makes it easy for users to hang bags securely, but demands a more conspicuous action to release them, making life awkward for thieves.
Both designs use the body or the weight of the bag, to complete the ‘lock’ and reduce opportunities for theft, both are flexible enough to be installed in different locations and meet different customer preferences and both are easy on the eye, avoiding fortress aesthetics. But do these solutions work in the real world? Their promising functionality had been well-documented by the press, but had not yet been sufficiently tested by the public.
A research pilot team commissioned by the Design Council worked to pilot-test 40 chairs and 50 clips in situ with the British Transport Police and an international coffee chain venue with a high footfall in Victoria station that was experiencing a significant bag theft problem. Within the first two months, customers were seen to be using the products and exercising better care and crime reduction had occurred, though this cannot be taken as conclusive evidence.
Problem
Café and bar culture encourages us to relax but research and bitter experience shows that many bags are stolen when customers become less alert as they switch off. Thieves prey on these soft targets in predictable ways, pushing away bags on the floor with their feet and lifting or dipping into bags hanging off the back of chairs. Some bar and café frniture designs, including square-backed chairs, may be complicit with the needs of thieves. Such furniture allows or even prompts insecure bag placement over the back
of chairs, outside the owner’s field of vision and consciousness. Even cautious customers, aware of the risk, may find it hard to locate the bag without making it vulnerable to theft or causing trip hazards. Moreover, customers often do not respond to ‘beware of thieves’ signs provided by police. In fact, many businesses suggest such signs may inadvertently promote the idea that their premises are uniquely unsafe, rather than the fact that customers must be careful in any busy café or bar.
Response
Could strategic design help reduce this crime and influence customers’ behaviour in terms of how they look after their bags? The pilot adopted a dual approach to test the design interventions. A Crime Reduction and Architectural Liaison Officer from the British Transport Police (BTP) collected recorded crime data for the pilot site and two ‘control’ sites at Victoria and Waterloo stations. Meanwhile, the research team conducted behavioural observations on site for one month before and two after installation to identify how customers located their belongings before and after anti-crime designs were installed. Changing customers’ security behaviour would serve as an ‘intermediate impact’ indicator that would, moreover, give much richer information on what was going on at the trial venue, than bald crime counts. The research team arranged to install 40 chairs and 50 clips. To ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ customers how the chairs might be used they also commissioned an artist whose relaxed easy-on-the-eye paintings featured people sitting on Stop Thief Chairs. They also worked with the chain to provide additional communication for staff areas.
Findings
The crime data showed that during the pilot’s post- installation period (December 2010-February 2011), two thefts were recorded from the intervention venue. By comparison, for the same period in the same venue a year earlier (December 2009-February 2010), there had been seven thefts. A competing café chain venue in the same station saw thefts rise, up from two incidents to three over the same periods. These figures are indicative only, but do suggest circumstantially that the design interventions were having a positive effect.
The behaviour changes identified give a positive picture too – but a much more robust one. Early research feedback from customer comments and behaviour revealed positive changes after the installation of the chairs and clips. ‘Best’, ‘good’, ‘OK’ and ‘bad’ were defined in terms of how securely bags are located within proximity, visibility and consciousness of their owners. Analysis of the results indicates a 24% increase in ‘best- and good-practice’ bag care by customers, since the installations. In parallel, a 21% reduction was observed in ‘OK- and bad-practice’ bag care.
Café staff appear satisfied with the way the chairs are performing, although early findings suggest the clips are experiencing greater initial customer uptake. This may relate to ‘behavioural change inertia’ often associated with new product genres (think how long we took to get used to people walking down the street talking into ‘invisible’ wireless headsets, for example).
Customer surveys were also conducted by the research team, following many of the observation sessions. Responses were encouragingly positive to both Stop Thief Chair and Grippa Clip designs. Of 21 respondents to date, 62% suggested the chair is both easy to use and makes it easier to care for their own belongings, and 76% agreed the Grippa Clips could help them feel more secure about their belongings.
Notably, the surveys also revealed the importance of clear visual communication to introduce the new concepts in the venue. When initial A4-sized
wall mounted communication was trialled, 81% of respondents indicated the posters were too small and too ‘corporate-style’ to notice, whereas after artist Steve Russell’s larger paintings were introduced to show rather than tell customers how the chairs could be used, more people noticed both the artwork and the chair designs.
Additional observations
Previously, the trial venue had installed some 40 Chelsea Clips, which remained in place during this study (under the same tables where the Stop Thief Chairs and Grippa Clips were located). Over the three months and 62 sessions of on-site observations conducted by the research team (before and after installation), just one of these Chelsea clips was observed in use by customers, perhaps because of the ‘hidden’ location its design necessitated (or its limited ability to accommodate as wide a range of weights/sizes of bag – a factor addressed by the Grippa.) This compared to 69 bags observed secured on Stop Thief Chairs and 246 bags hung on Grippa Clips over the two months of post-installation observation.