Inclusive Design Challenge
How might we enable people with disabilities to use autonomous ridesharing as a mobility option and have an enjoyable ride experience
Overview
🖇 Project Details​
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Timeline: January 2022 - Present
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Team: UX Researcher, joined by one other UX Researcher, three UX Designers, and two engineers
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Sponsor: U.S. Department of Transportation
📌 Goal
Through qualitative usability testing, my goal was to improve our design by observing the users’ behaviors, learning about their mental models, identifying problems in the app design, and discovering new opportunities to explore.
📌 Impact
Communicated design recommendations based on the usability testing results to the design team and improved the design and functionalities of our app so that it is more useful and usable for people with disabilities
CONTEXT
The Inclusive Design Challenge is about developing solutions to solve our most pressing access barriers for people with physical, sensory, and cognitive disabilities.
Our team developed an accessible smartphone-based application design that provides users with disabilities control of their ridesharing experience with autonomous vehicles
When I joined the team, the team had already completed generative user research to understand the goals and needs of people in the disability community.
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​My main responsibility was to take what the team had built and start testing it with people.
PHASE 1: PILOT TESTING
Before we started testing with our target users in the disability community, we wanted to run pilot tests with people with no known disabilities.
WHY: We wanted to make sure
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1) the design logically made sense and was free of major errors
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2) the testing ran smoothly
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HOW: We recruited and ran pilot tests with five people. As we wanted to keep our testing within an hour, we selected user flows with accessibility features that gave an experience most different from the standard ride-sharing app experience.
PILOT TESTING FINDINGS
We were able to identify many different parts of the design that the user found confusing or didn't use as the team expected, from small details to bigger concepts.
Some of our findings were:
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The seat selection options for setting the internal temperature made it seem like the users could set a different temperature for each seat
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The users didn’t realize that the curb cut button was clickable and didn’t use the feature
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The difference between the two vehicle types, AccessXL and Access2XL, was not clearly explained, and the users didn’t know what to choose
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The users were not sure if they could click parts of the displayed car interior image to control the vehicle settings
COMMUNICATING FINDINGS
We then organized, selected, and shared findings from usability testing in the form of design recommendations with the design team.
WHY: We wanted to help the design team clearly understand existing issues and implement changes to effectively address these issues and test the fixes in the next round of testing.
HOW: To make it easier for the design team to prioritize and implement changes, we classified each recommendation as low, medium, or high priority based on the frequency and severity of the issue.
PHASE 2: MAIN TESTING
After the high-priority issues from the pilot testing were fixed, we moved on to test with our actual users.
WHAT: We wanted to understand how our real users would use the app and how the app design did or didn't accommodate the unique needs and mental model of each of our target user types.
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HOW: Our initial goal was to test our app with wheelchair users and blind users. However, as our mobile app was not ready to be tested with blind users who needed a screen reader, we recruited and conducted remote user testing with wheelchair users who could test with our Figma app prototype.
TESTING FINDINGS
We learned about what our target users found helpful (and unhelpful), what they found challenging to understand and use, and ideas for additional features.
​Some of our findings were:
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When they got to the drop-off location and realized that the current drop-off location was not accessible to their wheelchair, users wanted the car to drive around the block so they could find more accessible drop-off locations
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Users wanted to know how long the wheelchair ramp would stay down and to even manually set when the ramp would go back up
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Once they got into the car, users hoped to know where and how they could position their wheelchair and put on the seatbelts
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Users wanted to control features with their voice as some of them had difficulties coordinating their arm and finger movements
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Users wanted the option to adjust the brightness of the overhead lights in addition to turning them on and off
