Accessible Venues Finder
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The Problem
"Finally!" said the gentleman in the wheelchair, a mix of frustration and relief in his voice as the automatic door in front of him finally opened after several failed attempts. Behind him, a lady with a walker is waiting patiently. This is a scene I happened to witness on a busy Thursday at one of the subway exits at College Station in Toronto, and it might not be an isolated incident.
It's challenging for people with accessibility needs to get reliable, up-to-date, and verified information regarding accessibility accommodations provided by venues in the city quickly and efficiently.
How can we improve their experience navigating around the city with less hassles and frustration? This is the question that our project strives to answer.
Project Information
- Course project for Foundations of User Experience Design at the University of Toronto, Master of Information Program
- Timeline: October 2023 - December 2023
- Team member: Xiaohan Hou, Elizé Khan, Renée MacDiarmid, Emily Clarke and Vivian Zhao
- Platform used: Miro, Figma, Canva, Google Slides
- Coordinated and conducted user interviews
- Designed, distributed and analyzed the user survey
- Created a compelling story to outline the persona's experience
- Created mid/high fidelity wireframes/prototypes in Figma
- Developed usability testing protocol and analyzed results
- Create a centralized platform where people can receive reliable, up-to-date information about the accessible accommodations available in venues around the city
- User research (recruiting participants, conducting one-on-one interview, research analysis)
- How to tell a compelling user story
- How to work with a dynamic project team
DESIGN THINKING PROCESS
- Secondary Research
- Interviews
- Surveys
- Affinity Diagram
- Empathy Map
- Persona
- Need Statements
- Big Ideas
- Idea Prioritization
- Design Goals
- Low-fidelity Sketches
- Mid-fi/Hifi Prototypes
- Usability Testing
- Next Steps
- Lessons Learned
RESEARCH
Question Guiding Research
- What is the online search experience like for individuals with accessibility needs when seeking information or resources related to accessibility?
- What challenges and barriers do individuals with accessibility needs encounter in public spaces?
- What are the social and psychological effects of inaccessible public spaces on the well-being and participation of individuals with accessibility needs?
Research Methodologies
Examined newspaper articles, blog posts, social media posts, academic articles and current products in the market.
Example: Reviewed Google Maps to see what it offers in terms of accessibility accommodations
Surveyed 35 participants who identify themselves having/had accessibility needs when visiting a venue.
Example: I’ve felt disappointed by a place being not as accommodating as advertised (select frequency)
Conducted interviews with 8 individuals living in North America who having/had accessibility needs themselves or professionals in accessibility.
Example: How do you feel when you don’t see an accessible venue when you need them?
Research Findings
We analyzed our research results by summarizing them into four main themes:
Negative Emotions
"I think that is the status quo which is sad but I do feel annoyed and forgotten."
Negative emotions, specifically anger and frustration, are commonly experienced when searching for information related to venues' accommodations/during the visit to the venues.
Desire for equal access
"All the friends going in the front door, you have to go twice the distance to go into the building to use the accessible ramp placed in the backdoor."
Another noticeable theme is the desire for more equal access to venues and equal participation in society.
Lots of Barriers
"It is actually super hard to find accessibility info for so many places in Toronto. Most places have washrooms down a flight if stairs."
A range of physical, social and psychological barriers, such as inadequately trained staff and poorly designed infrastructure are reported.
Information isn't Here
"Usually if I need an accessible feature I'd call directly and ask, not simply rely on what I find online"
Information regarding accessibility accommodations is often non-existing, inadequate, unreliable, or out-of-date. People usually have to call ahead to verify the information.
PERSONA
Meet Emma
Informed by research findings, our persona Emma, a young, active student-athlete living in Toronto, who was recently injured with a torn ACL came in to the place:
- 20 years old
- Lives in Toronto
- A student athelte
- Enjoys exploring the city for things to do and places to eat
- Usually travels with her friends
- Likes to make spontaneous plans on the go
Emma recently suffered from a torn ACL during one of her soccer games and must now use a wheelchair for 2 weeks, and crutches for up to 6 months to a year.
She wants to be able to keep up her active lifestyle throughout her recovery journey, but is nervous about how to navigate her recent accessibility needs.
Accurate and specific accessibility information
Live and reliable updates that can accommodate last-minute plans
To find places to go based on a range of features such as proximity and accommodations offered
A fast and easy way to locate accessibility-friendly places
Accurate and specific accessibility information
Wants all of her accessibility resources in one place
Wants to have access to venue ratings from community members
Wants to be able to filter places by accommodations offered
A fast and easy way to locate accessibility-friendly places
Wants to be able to browse upcoming events
Doesn't know where to look for accessibility-friendly venues and places
Doesn't want her accommodation to limit options and be an annoyance to the people around her
Unable to find reliable information
Too time-consuming to conduct thorough research
I didn't realize how limiting accessibility accommodations were until I experienced them myself
Emma's Current Experience
To develop a more detailed and immersive narrative for Emma's experience, I delved into a time when Emma gets invited to a dinner party by her athlete friend. When I created the scenario, I referred to our research analysis interview notes and survey data to ensure the experience was representative of what we heard from the users.
- Look at the calendar
- Google the resturant
- Call the venue about wheelchair accessibility
- Check the restaurant's social media on accessibility
- Try to enter the door through accessible ramp
- Find out the automatic door button is on the other side
- Press the buttons multiple times but it does not work
- Ask one of the friends for help "Can you hold the door for me?"
- Find out the washroom is located underground connected with long stairs
- Give up using the wheelchair and use crutches instead
- Call the venue about wheelchair accessbility
- Check the restaurant's social media on accessibility
- Sounds fun
- How hard would that be given my situation now...
- Should I just stay home to avoid the trouble?
- Well ok, there seems to be ramp
- The staff sounds confused as well, should I trust them?
- Why does the button not work
- Am I using the button wrong?
- People are looking at me
- I miss the time when I wasn't injured
- I don't want my friends to wait for me
- Why are there stairs here??
- This is so tiring
- My knees hurt so much...
- What if I never recover
- Maybe I just should have stayed home
- Excited
- Nervous
- Frustrated
- Nervous
- Uncertain
- A bit relieved
- Anxious
- Isolated
- Embarrassed
- Deceived
- Frustrated
- Rejected
- Mad
- Frustrated
- Annoyed
- Sad
- Disappointed
- Inferior
IDEATION
Emma's Needs
The first stage of ideation is focused on understanding Emma's needs. The way we accomplished this was to generate need statements on our own based on the pain points identified in the As-is scenario, and then put those needs together as well as categorized them based on themes:
Based on the needs statements clustered through themes, we further synthesized Emma's needs into five most important categories:
Emma needs a way to know what accessibility accommodations to expect at venues so that she can confidently plan her outgoing.
Emma needs a way to access updated information on available accommodations so that she can make spontaneous plans with her social circle.
Emma needs a way to access first-hand visitor experiences so that she can lean on her community for support.
Emma needs a way to know the accessible status of venue amenities so that she does not feel deceived when she arrives.
Emma needs a way to quickly verify accessibility information at venues so that she can trust the information without extra research.
Ideas Brainstorming
In the next stage, the team started brainstorming ideas to meet Emma's needs. Here are some examples of the ideas categorized:
Technology
Planning
Transportation
Navigation
Prioritizing the Ideas
After that, the team voted on the ideas based on impact and feasibility before visualizing them using a prioritizing grid to help us have a starting point for our design.
Favoriate Ideas
The prioritization grid gives us a few favourites. The team decided to move on with the digital accessibility hub as the foundation of our design and incorporate other ideas.
PROTOTYPES
Design Visions
Before the team jumped into prototyping the digital accessibility hub, we first aligned ourselves with three design goals based on Emma's needs and our ideas:
Emma the Explorer can filter venues based on accessibility needs while onboarding in seconds.
Emma the Explorer can build a collection of venues to maintain awareness at all times
Emma the Explorer can engage with venue reviews as though she's chatting with a friend
Low-fidelity Sketches:
Based on our design goal, the team decided on designing three typical tasks (onboarding, add to collection and leave a review) for our app, and started with the hand-drawn sketches:
Task 1: Onboarding
Task 2: Adding to Collection
Task 3: Leaving a Review
Lean Evaluation
After finishing low-fidelity sketches, the team recruited two users to provide some feedback on our design:
Improve/Clarify the Filter Feature
Both participants wondered how the filter works on the browsing page. Therefore, an overlay filter was created for searching filters/choosing multiple filters.
Strengthen Collection Management
One participant suggests folders on the collection page to stay organized with the collections, which we incorporate in the mid-fidelity wireframes.
Wireframes/Prototype
After the lean evaluation, the team project ends with mid-fidelity prototypes. Individually, I used some of my spare time to make them into high-fidelity mock-ups. I aimed to make my design systematic, repeatable, and approachable to another designer.
Task 1: Onboarding
Task 2: Filtering and Adding the Venue to Collection
Task 3: Leave a Review
Design System
My design system/library include typography, colours and reusable components. Check out my library in Figma for more details!
EVALUATIONS
Usability Testing Overview
Goals
- Find out if users can complete our tasks successfully, how long it take them if there are errors
- Recognize the challenges users might encounter while using our design
- Understand if our prototype reflects the users' needs
Methods
- 3 representative users were recruited
- Think-aloud protocol used: user talk about their thoughts as they complete the task, the tester observes and takes notes
- Post-task interviews conducted
Usability Testing Results
Next Steps
- Incorporate feedback from usability testing: e.g., change the position of the review button and clarify the necessary instructions for using certain features.
- Revisiting our needs statements to reflect on our solution continuously has addressed the user's pain points
Lessons Learned
I was responsible for developing the current vs. ideal user experience story. Whenever I encountered obstacles, I found it invaluable to refer to notes from interviews and surveys.
While presenting to stakeholders, I recognized the importance of context in storytelling. It's crucial to weave the narrative in a way that is both engaging and well-structured.
As the whole project was completed in a fairly limited timeline, this taught me the essential lessons regarding prioritization (e.g., what are things that we must have, what are things that belong "good to have," etc.)
