Design
Research

Amble: crowdsourcing pedestrian navigation

context

When? What? Who?

Facilitating informed pedestrian commutes by providing crowd-sourced information.

Year

2022 Fall

Role

Research, design

Team

Self + 3 UX designers

Context

Mobile app

Background

So what's the problem?

Navigation apps prioritize motor vehicles, neglecting a significant cohort of commuters: pedestrians. Pedestrians are exceptionally vulnerable to their environment, increasing their need for accurate, up-to-date navigation. We focused on providing a navigation solution for pedestrians, iterating through multiple stages of exploratory and evaluative research to arrive at our solution. Amble allows users to choose what navigational concerns to avoid on their route while also enabling them to create new reports, up and downvote existing reports, and earn rewards for participating in the reporting system.

Background

The competition

Our initial understanding of the problem space led us to understand this as an issue of navigation and safety. As such, we looked at competitors like Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze, and Citizen. Google and Apple both offer pedestrian maps but lack the ability to navigate around obstacles. Waze has a robust reporting functionality but lacks pedestrian inclusion. Citizen focuses on safety and local crime reporting but also encourages vigilantism in an undesirable way.

Initial research

Safety first—or not?

We interviewed 8 cellphone-savvy individuals from urban and semi-urban areas who used walking as a significant mode of transportation in their commutes. We uncovered several common themes.

Ultimately, it became clear that our problem was one of awareness, where safety was a byproduct of being aware or unaware.

Walkway conditions

People mentioned both construction, deteriorated walkways, and incomplete walkways

Human presence

The presence of other people may be reassuring or uncomfortable

Lighting

Lighting strongly impacted perception of route, whether as a result of broken utilities or time of day

Open space

Constricted spaces posed an obstacle for a variety of uses, making them worthy of avoidance

the pivot

How might we...?

How might we enable pedestrians to make better-informed decisions during their walking commutes about obstacles and other elements present in their environments?

User flow

Go with the flow

We used our research to craft personas, scenarios, and storyboards, all of which was used to clarify the users’ needs. The following preliminary flow was developed to show the basic required functionality.

Iteration

Pen meets paper

Per our flow, we created paper wireframes.

Iteration

Paper meets pen (tool)

Our paper wireframe was iterated into a true wireframe. Shown below are the home screen, the hazard filtering screen, and the route selection screen.

Evaluative testing

Reviewing our heuristic review

We conducted preliminary user testing with our wireframe using a casual heuristic evaluation structure, finding four key takeaways. These takeaways were incorporated into the mid-hi prototype, which was used in the next step of user testing (usability testing).

Error prevention

Various signifiers were not accurately recognized

User control and freedom

Users sought out missing navigational elements

Flexibility & efficiency of use

Users tried to use swipe navigation where it wasn’t present

Recognize & recover from errors

Users sought out a back arrow where none was present

Evaluative testing

Mitigating usability snafus

In the mid-hi prototype, features that obscured other elements were expected to close automatically or move other elements automatically, leading to user confusion. We adjusted dropdown behavior to comply with user expectation.

In the mid-hi prototype, there was no confirmation for reward redemption, leading users to repeatedly tap on a reward without noticing it was already redeemed. Accordingly, we added confirmation prompts.

In the mid-hi prototype, users didn’t correctly interpret signifiers. Accordingly, we updated the iconography.

In the mid-hi prototype, cursor tracking indicated that users wasted time trying to find certain information. Accordingly, we adjusted the information architecture to accommodate for users’ mental models, the typical posture in which users hold their phones, and to increase prompt saliency.

the design

Go with the (final) flow

the design

Ambling along

Based on crowd-sourced information about obstacles and other elements present in the environment, Amble enables pedestrians to make informed decisions during their walking commutes. Amble:

  • Provides users with high-level and up-to-date information about hazards in their environment
  • Allows users to make informed and flexible decisions about their walking commutes
  • Enables users to self-report about obstacles or hazards in the environment
  • Offers a gamified approach to pedestrian navigation

Reflection

Looking back

Given more time and the opportunity, there are a few elements of this project that I would love to focus on and/or revisit:

  • Information architecture: Some pages could use revision and exploration to improve clarity or simply to reduce users’ mental load
  • UI/graphics: The app could benefit from a little bit more consistency and cleanliness in the UI
  • Feature depth: Some features, such as rewards, could use additional fleshing-out to increase their depth and meaningfulness
  • Additional testing: Some significant changes were made based on usability testing results; evaluation of these changes through additional testing would be worthwhile