Traveling can be challenging without preparation for wheelchair users.
Little things like inaccessible entrance or bathroom that we do not notice can impact hugely on handicapped users.
People with no limited mobility view a wheelchair as one type of technology or tool, but for wheelchair users, it is a part of their body. Depending on an environment, users need specific assistance or instructions. This problem becomes much bigger issue in terms of traveling to a different state or country because of unfamiliarity of surroundings. Planning and Preparing beforehand is I believe when users spend much time because they regularly have to prepare for the unexpected.
My Approach
My goal was to introduce a seamless leisure travel planning experience for wheelchair users. Through user research and interviews, I was able to sort user needs, struggles and pain points I need to suggest a better solution in my application. I wanted to encourage anyone in a wheelchair, care-giver or anyone interested in inclusive travel to experience fully.Therefore, my solution was a platform that designs your inclusive traveling experience from planning to the end of the journey.
Design Strategy
Why do we travel?
Healthy
New experiences increase our resourcefulness.
Romantic
Traveling creates memories for a lifetime with family and friends.
Learnable
Traveling increases our knowledge and widens our perspective.
Design Research
Wheelchair users love traveling like we do
From the online traveling experience survey from wheelchair user community, my conclusion was users like traveling and they regularly spend time on their leisure travel. Surprisingly, about 96.8% of users said "yes" they love traveling, they travel 1-10 times in a year, and for leisure purpose mostly.
Design Research
However, they say traveling is challenging.
Approximately 90% of the users said they experience challenging to travel. Also, 97% of users plan things-to-do before the departure. For abled users, they do not neccessarily have to plan things ahead if they do not prefer to, but it is different for disabled users. They have to be prepared as much as possible because certain situations can impact hugely on them. If they do not want to end up with just visiting the most accessible place, museum, they have to be prepared. Under-preparation degrades the quality of their traveling experience.
Design Research
Why is it challenging?
Unfamiliarity of surroundings is challenging for wheelchair users especially traveling. Also, little things that we do not notice can impact big on wheelchair users.
- Booking hotels through travel agency does not guarantee fully accessible rooms.
- Wheelchair users are in need of a carer or an assistant while traveling.
- Not all places are accessible. It is necessary to acknowledge whether the place is inclusive or not.
- Unexpected weather condition is challenging when visiting outdoor sights &landmarks.
- Lastly, wheelchairs are not unbreakable. Emergency situations always have to be prepared.
We often found that after a hotels.com representative would guarantee us an accessible room, we would show up at the hotel only to find that our room was not accessible.
Kunho Kim
Design Strategy
Market Landscape Research
Tripadvisor, lonelyplanet and yelp have rich travel planning, but low on accessibility resources. On the other hand, planat and wheelmap.org are rich on accessibility resources, but low on travel planning. Therefore, flashlight aims for achieving both rich accessibility information and travel planning.
Design Strategy
Value Proposition
According to the value proposition, I could figure out user needs and what features of product has to be included. The features "flashlight" needed was to book accessible hotels, to provide rich accessibility information, to be able to alert weather condition, to provide a community to leave reviews and recommendations, and to help with emergency situations.
The Solution
Flashlight for your brighter travel experience
A platform that designs your inclusive traveling experience from planning to the end of the journey.
Design Research
Introducing User Personas
Design Research
User Persona Brad Prakash
Design Research
User Persona Amanda Montgomery
Design Research
User Persona George Steinfeld
Design
Information Architecture
Design
Wireframes
Design
Final Design
