Accessible Wayfinding
University of Washington
Spring 2020
A co-design session to better understand the struggles of accessibility in daily navigation and ideate design requirements for a more inclusive solution.
Problem
Planning how to get around is an integral part of everyday life. While technology has equipped drivers with navigation systems for their travel needs, pedestrians have far more complex requirements to fulfill. Wayfinding is even more challenging for people with disabilities. Footpaths and other access ways that do not take accessibility issues into consideration make it difficult for wheelchair and blind or visually impaired users to go from one block to the next.
Accessibility if often linked with a feeling of independence, so not being able to access certain routes or locations makes for an incredibly uncomfortable experience. Our team decided to focus on this problem space during this co-design project focused on accessibility and inclusive design.
Role
I served as the main coordinator for the team and was in charge of session logistics and the communicating with our co-designer. I participated in all steps of the process and helped finalize the design requirements.
Question
How can we help our participate facilitate daily navigation with his power-chair?
Process
Recruitment & Initial Interview
Lo-Fi Prototypes
Co-Design Session
Design Req’s & Final Review
Logistics
HCDE 598A
Topic: Accessibility & Inclusive Design
10 Week Project
Team of 4
Recruitment & Initial Interview
Finding a participant was a little more challenging as everything was online this quarter due to COVID-19. Fortunately, I have an acquaintance who agreed to be our co-designer for this project. The participant uses a powered wheelchair for mobility and through our initial interview we discovered these major problem spaces:
Encountering routes that are not wheelchair friendly (e.g. no curb cuts)
Encountering venues or stores that are not wheelchair friendly (e.g. no elevators, doors too narrow, etc.)
A lack of understanding in the community regarding the mobility issues of the participant
After the initial interview, the team came together and brainstormed initial ideas for tackling these different pain points.
Low-Fidelity Prototypes
My team and I summarized all the pain points discussed during the interview with our participant to fit into one or more of these three categories:
Find the most accessible route to a concert venue based on individual preferences (Journey)
Determine whether the concert venue has certain accessibility features (Location)
Understand the experiences of other people with similar needs at the concert venue (Community)
As a starting point, we wanted to make some low-fidelity prototypes of ideas that could serve as a solution to these three categories. Although we wanted to get a lot of original input from our participant, we also wanted to have a starting point in order to get more responses, both positive and negative. We came up with two different but similar solutions to use as a conversation starter for the actual co-design session:
WheelChair Integrated System
One idea was an integrated mini computer that would be part of the actual wheel chair. It would be similar to a navigation app on a phone. It would give detailed information regarding accessibility features of a location and also allow the user to put in preferences for what features they may need. It would give a detailed route, make the user aware of any obstacles, and provide a space to leave reviews aimed at the accessibility of a location.
Its integration with the chair would allow for a more hands-free experience by using either voice commands or additional AR glasses that would project the navigation to the user.
Phone Navigation System
This other solution is very similar to the integrated version in terms of what kind of information it would provide the user, but it would work as an extension to an already existing system such as google maps on a smartphone.
This would allow the user to already have some familiarity with the system and make it easier to get accustomed to. It was also have an already established community that could be built upon rather than having to start a completely new base.
Co-design session
As both solutions provide the same information to the user, we wanted to get feedback from our participant in terms of what should be prioritized. Before the session, we created a board on Miro with cards that each had a different function of the solutions (directions, reviews, preferences, etc.).
We showed this to our participant first to see what they thought would be the most important features and what should be added or taken away. After this, we presented our initial designs and began the co-design process. Splitting this into two different sections allowed us to get initial feedback from the participant without them being too influenced by our low-fidelity prototypes.
The prototypes allowed us to give our participant an idea of how these functions could be put into an actual project. As the participant had never done something like this before, it was a good intro to a design process, without overwhelming the participant or not getting any good discussion. By having something to critique, the participant had an easier time imagining additional features or things they would rather not have as part of the solution.
Design Requirements & Final Review
Following our Co-Design session, my team and I came together to finalize our design requirements. These requirements are meant to serve as a base for any future advancements of this project, which I hope to be working on sometime in the future. We had a final interview with our participant where we presented the requirements and asked for final feedback. They agreed with our requirements and did not have to add anything else at this point. The following are our final design requirements for a solution geared at accessible wayfinding:
The solution should give directions for the user based on their accessibility needs (i.e. only route with curb cuts)
The solution should be integrated with an already existing navigation app to ensure ease of use for the use
The solution should be financially affordable if it is on a technology that is not already in the user’s possessions (e.g. the AR glasses)
The solution should give the user alerts when coming up on unexpected obstacles to account for people wandering on auto-pilot (e.g stairs, dead-ends, steep hill etc.)
The solution should be able to be used hands free (e.g. voice commands, route overlay on sidewalk, etc.)
The solution should allow users to find high rated, accessible suggestions in the surrounding area of the target location (e.g. restaurants, bars, cafes, etc.)
The solution should allow users to get accessibility information about a location (i.e. seating information, automatic doors, door widths, etc.)
The solution should allow users to connect with other people at a location who might also have similar needs
The solutions should allow users to see reviews from other accessibility users and also input reviews
The solution should signal to bus drivers the need for the ramp and belt.
Constraints
Limited time
As with most projects, time is always a big issue. I think that more time would have allowed us to get more feedback from the participant. Regardless, the time we did have allowed us to get a very comprehensive insight on the everyday struggles that people with varying abilities face and we have only touched the ice berg of how such issues might be resolved or at least made less severe.
Limited resources
As everything was online, it was hard to get a very hands-on experience for the co-design session. We ended up using Miro and Figma, which did allow us to make real-time edits to our prototypes with the participant, but it would have been incredibly interesting to see how it would be different in person.
COVID-19
This was the first quarter we went online and we were all still figuring out how to really do group work online. I think the quarter taught us a lot about both the opportunities and constraints that come with remote work and we are better prepared now for online work in the future.
Reflection
Thinking back
Our participant was amazing. It was easy to spark discussion and get insights on daily struggles. It would have been nice to get more constructive criticism but the participant told us they were incredibly excited about the ideas because they had never seen something geared towards their disability before.
Thinking forward
This was an amazing project overall. It gave me a lot of insights on the struggles with accessible design but I know it barely touched the iceberg. There are so many issues in design regarding accessibility that is not talked about enough and I hope to be an advocate for inclusive design in the future.