Accessibility for Hikers with Disabilities
My team and I were tasked with creating a new application within a space of our choice to be pitched to potential investors, and find a partner company that will be interested in collaborating to make the new application part of their product.
Role: Product Designer
UX Artifacts
Heuristic Analysis
Screening Survey
User Interviews
Affinity Mapping
Persona Development
Usability Testing
User/Task Flows
Site Mapping
Spec Doc
UX Tools
Sketch
inVision
Other Skills
Agile/Scrum
Keynote
Discovery
Research the Space
MIND MAP
The first thing we did was brainstorm to select a suitable space for a new product. We used mind mapping and dot voting to narrow down our options and decide. We selected hiking with focus on accessibility support.
MATRIX
We searched online to understand the landscape of products providing accessibility information/options for hikers. We found that there are plenty of opportunities in the space.
HEURISTIC REVIEW
AllTrails is the leading product that lists and describes some of the trails that contain accessibility options but the review revealed that it is not convenient nor easy to find information related to accessible hiking
Understand the Users’s Mental Model
We started with a screening survey to engage suitable candidates for user interviews. Our goal was to discover the mindset of people with disabilities who like the outdoors and have or would like to be able to hike.
23
People who participated in the screener survey
(100%)
15
Screeners who hike or would like to hike
(65%)
10
Screeners who identify as having a disability
(43%)
11
Screeners who encounter physical constraints from exercise
(47%)
We conducted 5 user interviews with key people, selected from our survey, who were either people with a disability or a caregiver to someone with a disability. We used affinity mapping and “I”-statements to synthesize that data into key insights that fueled our persona mapping and many of our later design decisions.
AFFINITY MAPPING
INSIGHTS
They select rails based on terrain and environmental factors also considering peer recommendations
They hike in groups to foster community
They are unsure of where to find information on accessible hiking and are intimidated by the fragmentation of the existing data
Create Empathy by Developing a Persona and a User Journey
Based on this analysis we narrowed down the main issue and and focused on the following scenario.
Rodney has lived an active and social life but is now a wheelchair user, severely limiting what he views as possible. He has been an avid hiker and enjoyed spending time with friends and family on the trails. How might we help Rodney choose suitable trails and make the hiking experience more accessible so he can get back to what he loves?
Ideation
Iterate Through Design Studio Brainstorming Sessions
FEATURES
With our persona at the center we decided to brainstorm over the features that we could offer in the app based on our research; we made sure that the list was aligned with each one of the key insights discovered, and then decided on the following list using the MoSCoW decision matrix.
- Trail selection feature with accessibility options filters
- Trail overview feature with details on accessibility, ratings and comments/reviews
- Annotated Map showing accessibility features along
Lo-Fidelity Wireframes
We went through three iterations over each feature
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
And then created mid-fi wireframes in Sketch to go through a first round of usability testing
Complete the tested Mid-Fidelity Wireframes with Color, Texture and Delight
ACCESSIBILITY
We researched the different accessibility options that exist for hikers with disabilities and added them as filters
BADGES
We tied with our prospective partner, the National Park Association, in the way of adding their badges as prices to earn through our app to encourage usage
TEXTURE
We added a forest drawing as texture to create an outdoors theme and add delight
Next Steps
- Add an accessibility toolbar to make the app itself more accessible for people with vision challenges like colorblindness
- Include accessibility preferences for non-mobility conditions
- Include a feature to monitor vital signs to use in case of emergency
Creative Problem Solving
Trust the Process
Olga Patricia Gómez 