Facilitating informed pedestrian commutes by providing crowd-sourced information.
Year
2022 Fall
Role
Research, design
Team
Self + 3 UX designers
Context
Mobile app
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.
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.
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.
People mentioned both construction, deteriorated walkways, and incomplete walkways
The presence of other people may be reassuring or uncomfortable
Lighting strongly impacted perception of route, whether as a result of broken utilities or time of day
Constricted spaces posed an obstacle for a variety of uses, making them worthy of avoidance
How might we enable pedestrians to make better-informed decisions during their walking commutes about obstacles and other elements present in their environments?
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.
Per our flow, we created paper wireframes.
Our paper wireframe was iterated into a true wireframe. Shown below are the home screen, the hazard filtering screen, and the route selection screen.
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).
Various signifiers were not accurately recognized
Users sought out missing navigational elements
Users tried to use swipe navigation where it wasn’t present
Users sought out a back arrow where none was present
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.
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:
Given more time and the opportunity, there are a few elements of this project that I would love to focus on and/or revisit: