MyWay

About the project

MyWay serves as an intuitive and accessible tool to help individuals with mobility disabilities to navigate and commute within the city with more efficiency and convenience.

I performed a series of research to gain a holistic impression of how individuals with mobility disabilities commute and the design solutions are mobile application prototypes to solve the users’ needs.

My Role: Research, Ideation, Design, Prototyping

Duration: 12 weeks

Location: Chengdu, New York

Prior to beginning the development of the product, I performed a series of secondary research about the current disabilities situations in the U.S. in order to gain a more holistic understanding. An overview of the relevant statistics not only provides a fundamental impression of the context but also inspires me to discover the current challenges and design opportunities.

Background

Persona

Ideation

Both the secondary and primary research provides a holistic idea of how individuals with physical disabilities commute within the neighborhood environment. In order to conclude the research work in a more straightforward and informative format, I portrayed two typical user groups as the persona to illustrate some important concepts.

Reflections

To wrap up the project, the project itself aims to provide a more accessible and intuitive solution for individuals with physical disabilities who need a variety of assistive tools to move within the community.

Organize the commuting scenarios for the majority of manual wheelchairs users is helpful in understanding the users' mental concepts and behavior patterns

Design two modes of the UIs certainly builds a seamless experience as the user may use it on a variety of occasions

Continue broadening the knowledge of the physically disabled group could provide findings to assist to iterate the current design solutions and build better experiences

Overall, it's been a pleasure to work with the participants who provide meaningful thoughts. I would also thank to the suggestions and critiques which have been made by the parties who have reviewed the project.

Design

Overall, the product not only provides a fundamental navigational guide to individuals with physical disabilities but also assists the users to explore the accessible sides of the city.

Then I sketched out a few wireframes following the path of the flow chart and generated more detailed views of what the interfaces may look like and set the overall user flow of the design.

A large number of potential users should be manual wheelchair users

Have trouble with/need to navigate and commute efficiently within the city

Users may need to adjust their vehicles based on the conditions of the environment

Wheelchair-friendly navigation routes and accessible information data to the users are currently missing in most general maps

We know we’re right when the users can be informed, updated, aware of the precise information of the route and locations, and can commute more safely and independently

The tool allows users to log in set up an account for their personal use and store their personal information including frequent routes and preferred assistive vehicles in their dashboard

Onboard

Prior to departure, users can search the nearby locations with accessiblity notices and signs in order to be more prepared for the trips

Check Accessibility Notices

The accessibility notice includes locations are not currently wheelchair-friendly and the user can upload and comment their experiences about the accessibility of certain places with photos and ratings

Update Notice

The planned route provides information and notice along the way so the users can adjust their trips based on the notifications

Plan the Route

In order to gain a more hollistic overview of the trip, the user can preview detailed notices location including distance, time to pass, and photos

Preview Route Report

Research

The research data assists in understanding information about individuals with disabilities' commuting conditions, which provides inspiration to begin the ideation of the design.

26%

of the entire population have some type of disabilites

61

million people have types of disabilities

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 becomes effective

1990

Facts

After gaining a hollistic research study on the facts and competitors, I decided to continue the research to acquire a more qualitative data on how people with disabilities move and commute within the community and started interviews and workshops with the individuals.

Step 1:

Prior to begin the design, I decided to reach out to the staff who currently works at Chengdu Benevolence Family and the staff introduces 3 volunteers who have physibical disabilities to continue with the user research.

Step 2:

The feedback I received from the site provides me an overall impression about how wheelchair users commute in China. On the other hand, the school instructor introduces another 6 guest speakers and participants to have a more in-depth discussion about wheelchair user commuting situation in the U.S..