DiscoverTheWheel

DTW

UX research and design
DiscoverTheWheel is a reliable, funny, and memorable solution for people with a mobility disability to visit the best key points in a new place by following our accessible routes and learn  through interactive quizzes and virtual tours.

So they enjoy their holidays or discover new places in their own city, forgetting about accessibility impediments.
DiscoverTheWheel users with a mobility disability
Target
People in the 16 - 50 age range who has a mobility disability themselves or have a close friend or relative with whom they travel who does. 
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Challenge
The main requirements were reliability, easily to understand and accessibility. It is very important for them to be able to trust that our routes and suggestions are 100% accesible, contrasted by real users. It’s also key that not only the routes and suggestions are accessible but the tool itself is. 
‍“I want to enjoy the experience of visiting a new place avoiding any accessibility barriers.”
My Role & Responsibilities

  • Research and problem definition.
  • Interaction design (flows, sitemaps, card-sorting).
  • Prototyping & validation.

The Process

Discover & Define
Even in capital cities, there are a lot of impediments that people with mobility disability face in their day-life, but when talking about disconnecting, It's even more difficult to be able to enjoy while travelling.
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I put together empathy maps that helped me to define the pains, I rephrased them as “How might we” questions, and defined the problem statement.
Finding proper competence was a challenge, so I focused my research on apps that trace accessible routes and tourism apps with some scavenger hunt challenges. Extracting their strengths and opportunities gave me very useful insights.
DiscoverTheWheel competitive analysis table
Summary table of the Competitive Analysis.
Findings:
  • There were no competitors with the same goal.
  • The apps that trace accessibility routes have important influencers associated to them inside the community.
  • Tourism scavenger hunt apps don't exploit the full potencial of technology.
  • There is a lack of funny and interactive tourism apps.
Competitive Analysis
I wrote User Stories that helped me prepare the materials for the research.
As a user, I want to have a filter option, so that I can select some characteristics like museums, monuments, parks, foodie, etc. and the web app will show me the best challenges for me.
As a person in a wheelchair that is doing a challenge and wants to have a pause, I want to be able to see accessible places around my location on the map, so that I can find easily a WC, restaurant, or park to rest.
As a person in a wheelchair that is using the web app, I want to see a map with the route I need to follow and my current location, so that I know I’m following the route and I won’t face any accessible impediments.
Some of the User Stories.
User Stories
Observe & Conceptualization
Due to timing reasons, I run the survey in parallel to doing interviews to reinforce the interviews' findings with quantitative data. At first, it was challenging to find people who fit in my target group but I managed to join several social media groups and found them:
115 people
answered the survey
6 people
interviewed
115 people answered the survey while I interviewed 6 users by video conference. They came from all over the world: Asia, South America and Europe. 4 of them had a mobility disability themselves and 2 of them travel with someone who does.

I did the affinity map, and grouped the findings and insights into four categories: barriers, travelling experiences, smartphones while travelling, and accessibility.
Findings:
  • Public transportation is a big impediment, especially for more than one person travelling with a wheelchair.
  • Users who travel alone are less worried about depending on strangers to help them on the streets.
  • Toilets were extremely important for the users, even more than accessibility impediments.
User Personas
I put together three Primary Personas:
DiscoverTheWheel user personas
Primary User Personas.
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Customer Journey Maps
I established three different user goals, personalized for each of our personas, and developed the customer journeys they’ll go through to accomplish those goals.
DiscoverTheWheel Customer Journey Maps
Customer Journey Maps.
Ideate

DiscoverTheWheel User Flow
First version of user flows. I've highlighted the one related to Marta's user goal: save a route in my favourites. During the next iterations, I polished the user flow.
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Sitemap
I sketched a sitemap and run a card-sorting, that helped me refined the second version of the sitemap. However, it is not the definitive, I polished it along with the user flows, after testing the prototypes.
DiscoverTheWheel's Sitemaps's Intermediate version
Second version of the Sitemap after running the card-sorting.
Iteration
Prototyping
I developed prototypes with different fidelity level that contained the main flows in them and iterated them based on moderated tests done with users.
DTW User Persona Picture
User Goal
As a user that travels with her partner, I want to save my favourites routes, so that I can check them later with my partner and decide together where to go.
low mid fi prototypes save in my favouritesDTW mid-fi prototype save in my favourites

Low and mid fidelity prototypes of the user flow: save in my favourites.
Usability Testing
2 moderated
in-person usability tests
4 moderated
remote usability tests
I recruited 6 users and I run 2 moderated in-person user tests and 4 moderated remote of the prototype. I developed the Usability Test Plan, defined my Test Goals, and Objectives, and scheduled them.

Afterwards, I put together the issues in an affinity map, then I grouped and organized all of them in a rainbow-sheet. I measured the success, time and satisfaction while doing each task, as well as the general satisfaction at the end. Based on this, I prioritized the issues and improved the main ones. It helped me re-drawing the wireframes and optimizing the user flows, as well as the sitemap.
DTW wireflow save in my favourites
High fidelity Marta's user flow: wireflow save in my favourites.
UI & Design System
I designed the CI of the brand and showcased them in the style guidelines, which included the logo, typography, colours, language tone, images and UI elements.
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In order to have a faster future development, I created a Design System.
DTW Design System
First of the Design System screen captures.

Achievements

After 2 months of research and iterations, I ended up with a validated Hi-fi prototype that fits the needs of the users. It is also complemented by a design system for its future development.

The Result

High Fidelity
After all the iterations and improvements, here are some of the hi-fi screens of the web app.
DiscoverTheWhell Hi-fi Wireframes
Hi-fi Screens.
See here the video presentation of the main features.

Take Away

Challenge
The main challenge was finding people with a mobility disability for the research and testing. In the channels where I normally find users, I couldn’t find anyone. I managed to join several groups related to accessible tourism, wheelchair, and accessibility, among others in different social nets. I also contacted different associations. It was really useful that I could speak both English and Spanish because surprisingly, I received more answers from the Spanish-speakers.
What went well
Once I found the people, they involved themselves a lot. They were really excited about someone taking into consideration their needs and trying to find a solution. They were willing to help in order to be helped. I got a lot of useful insights and I was able to understand the accessible barriers much better.
What I would do differently
Due to timing reasons, I run the survey in parallel to the interviews. If I had the chance I would have done the survey first, so I would make the interview questions a little bit more specific, after analyzing the survey results, in order to understand better some of the survey answers.
What I would like
With the hi-fi prototype finished, I’ve realized that there is a bigger need for this project than I’d imagined. People with a mobility disability can’t trust any tool to find accessible tourism routes, places, restaurants, etc. Their enthusiasm about the product was so high that I’m looking for a collaboration with a developer to make this project real. I would love to launch this as a non-profit app so everyone is able to enjoy new places without dealing with accessible barriers. If you are interested, contact me!
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©natalia gonzalez 2024
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