PROJECT OVERVIEW

The Future of Accessibility & Autonomous Ridesharing

Organization

CMU HCII x USDOT Inclusive Design Challenge

My Role

Product Design Lead (Visual Interface Team)

Building the Autonomous Ridesharing Experience for People with Disabilities

Product Design

Accessibility

Mobile UI

In this project, funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), I worked on an interdisciplinary team of CMU HCII designers and engineers to create Unigo: an autonomous ridesharing app, featuring an integrated VUI, that leverages autonomous vehicle technology to support users with disabilities.

Our team was named one of 10 semifinalists in the USDOT's Inclusive Design Challenge, which seeks design solutions to improve passenger-vehicle accessibility with autonomous vehicle technology. Working with collaborators at Propel, we are looking to fully implement Unigo for iOS and Android by December 2021.

Timeline

June 2021 - Present

I was responsible for...

UX/UI

interaction design

prototyping

Design System

User testing

Meet the team

Advisors

Nikolas Martelaro
Patrick Carrington

Visual Interface

Xander Fan
Patricia Yu
Ginny Zhao

Voice Interface

Joseph Han
Yvonne Hou
Kyra Low

Backend

John Chae
Megan Lin
Charmaine Qiu

The Challenge

Autonomous Ridesharing & Accessibility

Developments in autonomous ridesharing have yet to truly include users with disabilities. Existing ridesharing apps are currently lacking in the amenities, accomodations, and features that users with disabilities need, limiting their ability to use ridesharing services.

The Solution

Unigo: Personalized Autonomous Ridesharing

Building on existing ridesharing apps, we designed Unigo to create the autonomous ridesharing experience to supports users with physical, visual, and hearing impairments. The app allows for greater customization and control for all users, as well as tailored settings and features for accessibility.

Settings & Preferences

Customization for Accessibility & Comfort

With Unigo, users can set custom vehicle and app preferences based on their accessibility needs, and control in-ride vehicle settings to maximize their comfort. The ability to personalize vehicle type, amenities, and settings is key in accounting for the diverse range of accessibility needs that vary across different user disabilities.

Pickup & Dropoff

Personalized Guidance & Support

To support users during pickup and dropoff, Unigo incorporates features such as tailored location recommendations and alerts, as well as a guided boarding process.

in-ride features & visuals

Enhanced Situational & Location Awareness

During the ride, Unigo helps users stay informed of their location, trip status, and surroundings. Maintaining this awareness is key in helping users build trust with their autonomous vehicles throughout the ride experience.

Voice Control

Flexible Control Options

Unigo allows for flexible control of the app interface via an integrated voice assistant. Users will be able to switch to voice control at any point through the voice command, "Hey Unigo", and other customizable activation shortcuts.

Jump to design process -->

RESEARCH PROCESS

The Current-state of Ridesharing for Users with Disabilities

User interviews

Understanding User Needs for Accessibility & Trust

SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS

FOCUS GROUPS

SECONDARY RESEARCH

To gain a better understanding of salient user needs within the autonomous ridesharing experience, I conducted secondary research and interviewed users with a wide range of physical, visual, and hearing impairments. From this, I identified the three main categories of user needs within the ridesharing process.

User need #1

Customization

Users with different disabilities need ways to tailor the app to their specific needs.

User need #2

Guidance

Users need clear guidance at key touchpoints (e.g. pickup, dropoff).

User need #3

Customization

Users need to be able to maintain awareness of their trip and vehicle status, location, and environment.

Storyboarding

Capturing Key User-Vehicle Scenarios

STORYBOARDING

SPEED DATING

Building on our research, the next step was storyboarding to capture key touchpoints within the different stages of the ridesharing process. Speed dating with these storyboards then surfaced the specific user needs at each of these touchpoints, within different scenarios and interactions.

I need to know where I am, and I need to be able to situate myself. If I can’t be dropped off at my exact destination, I’d want to be at an intersection or a major building that I can easily navigate from.

— Participant, 62, Blind User

A lot of things depend on where I’m going, if there’s traffic or anything that I should watch out for. It’d be nice to know what things are like [at my destination] ahead of time.

— Participant, 35, Wheelchair User

Design Guidelines

Establishing Accessible Design Guidelines

Design Guidelines

User scenarios

Synthesizing our research in conjunction with principles from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, I worked with my team to create a set of accessible design guidelines for Unigo. This would inform our design process and ensure that the visual design, features, and functionality were all in line with user accessibility needs.

Design Process

An Accessible & Fully Autonomous Ridesharing Experience

vehicle requirements

Balancing Customization & Automation

To establish the basis for the app interface design, I needed to determine what aspects of the ride experience users wanted to customize, and to what extent. My first step here was to wireframe and test the different categories of accessibility preferences and amenities that users would want to control.

Automated settings configuration wireframes & flow

Throughout testing, users wanted more manual control over specific vehicle amenities, rather than having them determined automatically by the app. In addition, they needed to be able to understand exactly how the information they provided would change their ride experience.

Integrating this feedback across several iterations, I designed the final Ride Preferences pages to allow for more customization and explainability in these areas, while minimizing the information users would need to provide.

Ride preferences for vehicle accessibility features and amenities

Vehicle controls

Enabling Full User Control over Autonomous Vehicles

One of the main goals of this project was to ensure that users can control the vehicle entirely from the app, whether it was opening the vehicle doors, turning on the AC, or changing seating positions. In designing these vehicle controls, I focused on establishing and optimizing the overall information architecture and specific user flows in user-vehicle interactions.

Boarding & Deboarding

Some of the most complex flows within the app interface were in boarding and deboarding: my main design goals in constructing these flows were to build the optimal sequence of actions, while also allowing for flexibility in the options provided to users.

Control Panel

I designed the in-ride Control Panel to provide users with a way to customize vehicle settings. In designing the Control Panel, I focused primarily on information architecture and interaction design—the main challenges were in determining the optimal layout and grouping of controls, and ensuring that there was enough feedback and feedforward within each control.

Final design

Alternate layout sketches

Location & Navigation

Building Features for Location Awareness

In interviews and testing, a recurring concern users expressed was in regard to maintaining awareness of their location and surroundings during trips. To address this, I designed and tested in-ride features that leveraged mapping and GPS technology and camera feeds in ways that could be tailored to users with different disability types.

Location Updates

Helps users understand their location via recognizable venues (e.g. landmarks).

GPS Navigation

Provides both user navigation to pickup locations and in-ride vehicle navigation.

360 Live Cam

Allows users to see a real-time 360-degree view of their outside environment.