Timeline

• 1 week (Aug 23, 2021- Aug 30, 2021)

• The timeframe set to simulate the fast-paced environment that people in a self-driving car company usually work in.

My Role

• Solo passion project

• Accessibility advocate

Background

The design of Self-driving car hasn’t kept up with the technology

Decades ago, the concept of self-driving cars was still thought to be farfetched and unrealistic for the technology to implement. These couple of years, with the maturity of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology is becoming a reality on US roads. Tesla cars (Level 2 automation) are all over the world, and vehicles with a higher level of automation (i.e. Waymo) are being tested by civilians in the US. These new technologies and transportation alternatives provide the solutions of expanded mobility for users of all ages, genders, races, abilities, and backgrounds¹. The technologies seem to be ready, the regulations, designs, and passengers, however, are not quite there yet.

The why

It is my job as a UX designer to look out for the underrepresented user groups and put them front and center

Massive mobility gaps exist between people with disabilities and people without. People with special needs are heavily dependent on public transportation for essential needs. Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have the potential to increase mobility for these demographic groups. However, they have been largely absent from AV perception research² ³.

Designing specifically for people with special needs is going to end up helping everyone

​From the Curb-cut effect's perspective, designing the AVs that revolve around the needs of people with disabilities is the right thing to do, is good for business, and is going to benefit everyone (better design). Therefore, I designed an app that does just that - Hailo.

Research

Literature Review

Given that it's a one-week project, I decided to do a literature review to get myself up to speed and understand the research that has been done, the insights that currently exist, and the obstacles people with disabilities face.

Define

After synthesizing the findings I pulled from the literature review, I organized and prioritized the problems that the industry is facing by the frequency those problems are mentioned.

And the top 3 problems are:

Trust

People have a hard time trusting the fully autonomous vehicle and are not mentally ready to give away full control.

Accessibility

People with disabilities rely heavily on public transportation, which isn't that accessible for many of them, resulting in them missing doctor's appointments.

Safety of Unintended Users

AVs are particularly scary for pedestrians (unintended users) who have disabilities because they don't know if they can be seen by AVs.

solution

After brainstorming and ideating, I narrowed the possible solutions down to 4 by considering the technical limitations, feasibility, and by referring back to the top 3 problems to solve.

Conclusion

Given more time than the one-week project timeline for the app concept, I believe I can make Hailo a lot more robust and take it to the next level where it can really help people who need it.

Making design accessible is crucial especially for an app like Hailo, which is designed for people with disabilities. Please feel free to drop any constructive criticism or feedback if you have any!

Here is the Medium article for Hailo

Here is the clickable prototype.

References

Abraham, H., Lee, C., Brady, S., Fitzgerald, C., Mehler, B., Reimer, B., & Coughlin, J. F. (2017, January). Autonomous vehicles and alternatives to driving: trust, preferences, and effects of age. In Proceedings of the transportation research board 96th annual meeting (TRB’17).

1. Jolly, D., Priestley, M., & Matthews, B. (2006). Secondary analysis of existing data on disabled people’s use and experiences of public transport in Great Britain. Centre for Disability Studies, October.

2. Kassens-Noor, E., Cai, M., Kotval-Karamchandani, Z., & Decaminada, T. (2021). Autonomous vehicles and mobility for people with special needs. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 150, 385–397.

3. McKinsey & Company, May 21, 2020, Accessible design means better design (https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-design/how-we-help-clients/design-blog/accessible-design-means-better-design)

4. Ditte Hvas Mortensen and Frank Spillers, May 2020, 3 Reasons Why Accessible Design Is Good for All (https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/3-reasons-why-accessible-design-is-good-for-all)

Thank you for reading! 🧠

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