An autonomous vehicle experience for the visually impaired
MA User Experience Design: Final Major project
This project builds a bridge between a technology whose implementation will happen in a foreseeable future, autonomous vehicles, and the mobility of those who are visually impaired on an inclusive design effort.
In this landing page the reader will find not only the toolkit used for its production but also the results from the conversations that had been carried out with visually impaired people. Hopefully, both methods and results of this project will inspire more designers to help make autonomous vehicles an inclusive force of mobility.
Project’s theoretical framework
The two frameworks on which this project developed had been Co-design and Speculative Design. By putting this together, a collaborative space was created in which I, the UX designer could facilitate users to bring their own ideas to live. With these frameworks, visually impaired people were able to discuss, design and speculate how autonomous vehicles could be designed to be inclusive for them.
Toolkit
Since this project was carried out during a global pandemic (COVID-19), all the co-design sessions had to be carried out remotely, but this didn’t stop this projects’ goals. As no physical interaction was possible, I conducted different conversations with visually impaired people that would help us, designers, see how they think autonomous vehicles (AVs) could work for them. Following there’s the different methods, which prioritise qualitative data over quantitative, that helped me curate these conversations.
Interviews.
Interviews helped me get insights of the experiences of blind or visually impaired people with their mobility. They also made me understand how blind or visually impaired people feel towards AV in terms of trust, opportunities and accessibility.
Scenarios.
Scenarios are a useful tool to explore how a product or a service can be used in a future from user’s perspective. In this case, each scenario used had been created in order to understand different parts of the experience of travelling on AVs when being visually impaired or blind.
Mind maps.
Mind maps helped me analyse how the conclusions that came out during the previous co-design sessions match with the concepts participants thought stood out in relation with AVs. These also provided opportunities for further investigation.
Let the speculation begin!
The following video illustrates some of the ideas that stemmed from the different co-design sessions that were carried out during this project.
Further findings.
The information shown next comes off from the answer received from talking with visually impaired people. These answers are a results of speculation based on their own mobility experiences.
Trust in humans.
There’s a general feeling of trust in talking to other people when hiring a car service. There’s also a tendency in participants to create their own network of cab drivers that they trust and whom the hire regularly if possible. This highlights the need for human workforce even in autonomous services.
Error scenario.
If an AV stopped working while the user is en route somewhere, they would directly assume that another AV will come to pick them up. On another hand, even if the vehicle stopped working, users would expect it to give some information about the situation they’re in.
Feedback.
When they’re en route somewhere with a vehicle, they said they feedback they like getting is about the trip they’re taking: how far from destination, what route it will take, possible disruptions. There’s a tendency in participants to ask drivers of the vehicles they use about the route they’re taking.
Guide dogs.
Even though not every visually impaired person has a guide dog, they are a relevant actor in the mobility of those who have them. Therefore, any AV experience should consider them as so and design their transport services accordingly.
Sound as main form of interaction.
With AVs participants highlighted a preference to get feedback information through sounds or voice, as they think it’s the most efficient in terms of time. There’s opportunities for tactile interaction(e.g. Braille) for double checking and multitasking purposes.
Predictions.
When asked whether they predict AVs to be inclusive for visually impaired people once these become broadly implemented, all participants gave a negative answer. The reason for this, they said, was that it’s likely that car-making companies will keep pursing profit instead of making products that are accessible for those who have any impairment.
Conclusions
An inclusive AV experience is possible.
The results of combining co-design and speculative design during the different sessions of this project have shown that visually impaired people consider autonomous vehicles as an opportunity for a bigger mobility autonomy. Furthermore, the holistic approach of the AV experience taken in this endeavour indicates that it can effectively be designed to be inclusive towards people with visual impairments and they can achieve so by adjusting the way the vehicle interacts not only with users but also the mobility actors that configure its environment.
Trust, but with a hint.
Although this project’s audience shows itself positive about welcoming AVs into their mobility options, they also highlight that the whole experience would feel safer if they could talk to real people under specific circumstances. From my point of view, what this could mean in terms of employment is that regardless of AVs getting rid of car drivers, human work-force would still be needed to provide assistance and ensure that passengers feel comfortable and safe using AVs.
Further research.
In addition to the conclusions presented here, I’d like to say that while this project achieved its main goals, there were questions arose during the process that I haven’t answers and that I’d like to mention as topics for further research. One of them is the consideration of guide dogs in the mobility experience; it would be useful to investigate how guide dogs would affect the AV experience not only for those who have them but also other users. Moreover, another quest to look into is all the possibilities multimodal interaction could bring not only for visually impaired people but also those who have any other sensorial or physical limitation.
