The Process
Based on the Design Thinking Process, I used the double diamond strategy and started the “Discover” phase by doing wide research. I focused the research on people facing accessibility impediments. Even in capital cities, there are a lot of impediments that people face in their day-life but when talking about disconnecting, I found it even more difficult to be able to enjoy while traveling.
I did empathy maps that helped me to define the pains, I rephrased them as “How might we” questions, so I could define the problem statement more easily.
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.
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.
Based on the Functional Requirements from the BRD, I developed User Stories for each requirement. Focusing on the main functionalities that the MVP should have.
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.
02. 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
personally 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, grouped the findings and insights into four categories: barriers, traveling experiences, smartphone while traveling, accessibility. And I wrote down possible solutions.
Findings:
- The results helped me having a broader vision about mobility disabilities.
- I extracted several useful inputs from the users that I hadn't considered before, which made me re-prioritize the features for the MVP.
- I discovered that issues such as toilets were extremely important for the users, even more than accessibility impediments.
With the findings and insights taken away from the affinity map, I jumped into the user’s shoes. I created three different Primary Personas based on the real information extracted from the research.
Primary User Personas.
I established three different user goals, personalized for each of our personas. As a second step, I developed the customer journeys they’ll go through to accomplish those goals. This way, I could visualize easily the process and contribute ideas to implement in the web app.
Customer Journey Maps.
Based on the inputs extracted in the observation phase, I selected a user goal for each of our personas and wrote task flows for them. Afterward, I draw the user flows.
Legend:
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.
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.
Second version of the Sitemap after running the card-sorting.
I developed prototypes with different fidelity level that contained the main flows in them.
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 and mid fidelity prototypes of the user flow: save in my favourites.
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.
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.
High fidelity Marta's user flow: wireflow save in my favourites.
