AccessMaps

Overview

Problem

Wheelchair users find indoor navigation challenging because of poor accessibility signage and information. And navigation by brute force is time-consuming and often futile.

Solution

An indoor navigation map app that provides relevant accessibility information and helps wheelchair users find accessible paths to their destinations.

This is a 10-week project for class CS377Q: Designing for Accessibility at Stanford. I collaborated with 2 classmates and worked as the full-stack product designer on the team. While there’s a range of people with disabilities we can design for, we decided early on to focus on the wheelchair users.

Research

We started with a wheelchair simulation session to gain empathy for our target audience and derived our main insights based on our need-finding observations plus interviews and literature review.

Need-finding Observations & Interviews

We conducted direct observations and interviews with wheelchair users. Some of the most salient user quotes are listed below.

"I spent over an hour trying to find the classroom location, getting held up because I couldn't find the elevator or accessible ramps. Eventually, I decided not to take the class because I couldn't get there." - A Stanford student who is also a wheelchair user

"I wish I could go outside in an independent way. Right now it's impossible because it would require me to go in a car alone and then navigate everything else on my own." - An elderly wheelchair user

"I seldom go outside, because I have back pain and I cannot sit for a long time. I need to be accompanied when I leave home. There are too many obstacles. The ADA slopes might be manageable for people who can move their hands and arms, but they are too steep for me." - A wheelchair user with spinal cord injury

Literature Review

In addition, a survey of relevant products, research, and journal articles in particular pointed out that one of the most significant problems wheelchair users face is with indoor navigation.

Synthesis

Therefore, by putting all of our research together, one problem became apparent and in particular stood out to us:

Core User Scenario & Task

As the first step to solve this problem, we decided to start with redesigning the indoor navigation experience of buildings at Stanford because the campus currently has very poor indoor navigational mapping and visuals and planning an indoor route at Stanford right now takes extensive leg-work and preparation for wheelchair users.

Core User Scenario

Within this context, we further defined our core user scenario as:

A Stanford student in wheelchair who is unfamiliar with [a particular Stanford building] is attempting to navigate indoors to find a classroom, restroom or other locations of interest efficiently.

Core User Tasks

This scenario is, in turn, enabled by 2 user tasks that can be accomplished in our app:

• User should be able to use our app that displays the student’s indoor location real-time to plan a wheelchair-accessible route to their location of interest, e.g. a classroom, at the moment of being in/near the building.

• User should be able to successfully read the indoor wheelchair accessible map and interpret it to reach his/her destination.

1st Round Prototype

With the 2 tasks in mind, we proceeded to build prototype V1 to answer the key design question, namely can the user intuitively identify accessible routes of their choice to navigate to places of interest inside a building they are either in or close to?

Testing & Iteration

We then put our prototype into test with the teaching team and fellow classmates. And based on the feedback we gathered, we made the following changes:

In addition, based on the feedback, we also came up with a more precise definition of the 3 user flows for our app:

• Virtually explore a building's accessibility features such as the power doors and elevators

• Choose routes based on accessibility levels, e.g. slope differences, and ultimately personal preferences

• Navigate to destination through turn-by-turn AR path overlays with accessibility markings

2nd Round Prototype

This round of testing then led us to our prototype V2:

User Study

At this point, we believed that we were ready to bring our prototype to actual wheelchair users for testing and feedback. We started off with a pilot study followed by 2 user study sessions, with 3 wheelchair users in total.

During each user study session, we asked the user to first try out our prototype to complete 3 user tasks, namely:

• Explore different features of the Stanford building in question using our app without physically navigating indoors

• Navigate to a specific classroom from outside the building

• Navigate to the closest all-gender bathroom from the classroom

This is followed by a brief interview during which we asked user to give feedback on their experience using our prototype, reflect on the differences and similarities between the prototype experience and their usual navigation routines, and provide any other suggestions they might have.

Following are some insights we gained:

Final Prototype

We then put everything we learnt throughout this journey together into our final prototype:

Results

At the end of the quarter, AccessMaps was presented to fellow classmates, professors, judges and the general public at the Project Fair. We were awarded 1st place out of all 6 projects from the class. Representatives from a nearby hospital also demonstrated their interest in helping turning this prototype into a reality.

In addition, here’s some positive feedback from the users:

“This is huge - [User A] is legally blind but he could navigate by himself with this app...this [referring to the prototype] will be fantastic.” - User A’s Caregiver

"This kind of app would also be great for way-finding in [hospitals]." - User B

“It was really easy to get here because I just need to follow the phone. Look at the phone will help me go where I wanna go.” - User A

Future Directions

Incorporating Other Sense Types

Because many wheelchair users also have other impairments (e.g. low vision or hearing loss), it would be interesting to explore other forms of input/output such as haptic feedback or voice-assisted navigation.

Developing Finer Screening Criteria for User Study

Because of limited time and resources, we recruited wheelchair users indiscriminately for our user study sessions. However, it could be helpful in the future to develop more nuanced personas based on factors or dynamics we saw during our study that heavily impacted user feedback, such as other physical restraints (e.g. low vision or hearing loss), requirement of a human caregiver or guide dog, and general comfort with using a phone/technology.

Learnings

Design for the user, not the professor.

Start early with recruitment for user study, especially when designing for a very specific target audience.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!