SeePittsburgh
Product designer
A campaign experience that collects stories from Pittsburgh community members and invites new visitors—including those with visual impairments—to explore neighborhoods through accessible, voice-driven storytelling.
Fall 2020, Carnegie Mellon School of Design Senior Capstone
Pittsburgh, PA
Figma, Adobe Illustrator
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1. Understand patient’s needs and problems within the subject space.
2. Understand the community’s current level of knowledge of people with visual disabilities.
3. Understand how Pittsburghers currently view their community.
Through the online survey with over 20 responses and interviews with experts (special thanks to Rebecca Fater at Perkins School for the Blind), we found out that people have a very basic level of knowledge about visual disabilities, however it is mixed with other emotions of discomfort, fear, pity, and stigma.
We set up a public forum in order to understand how people see their communities in Pittsburgh currently, and to understand what people hope their communities will become in the future.
People want their communities to be diverse, inclusive, and connected. We learned that Pittsburgh community members have a positive sentiment towards their communities, but also hope to work towards the future for a community that is more inclusive of its diverse population.
Research goals
Research findings
Research
The new UPMC Rehabilitation and Vision Tower will bring in new and diverse people, including those with visual impairment, to existing neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. Our client UPMC aims to enhance the experience around the new Rehabilitation and Vision Tower.
To enhance the diverse neighbors coming into the new environment and the existing neighbors' experience, we focus on and dissected the interactions between the incoming patients and community.
Design process
Background
Surveys
Interviews
Participatory research
Research insights
Problem definition
Stakeholder map
User journey map
Storyboard
UI design
Prototyping
Research
Synthesis
Ideation
Prototyping
Development
Wireframe
How might we motivate sighted people, who have limited experiences with people with visual impairments, to want to learn to understand and empathize with people with visual disabilities?
Studies show that more than half of Americans do not feel comfortable around people who are blind.
There exists little resources and opportunities for sighted people to learn about and understand the experiences of people with visual impairments.
People tend to rely on their personal biases and misconceptions.
Encourage our target audience to:
1. Recognize their personal biases and preconceptions of people with visual disabilities
2. Better understand and empathize with people who are different from them
3. Overcoming awkward/uncomfortable barriers when socializing with new neighbors that may have a visual disability
Speaking with Rebecca Fater (Executive Director of Marketing at Perkins School for the Blind), we learned about the project called BlindWays, a platform in which enhances the experience of finding the bus stops for the people with visual disabilities, with the clues that describe permanent landmark near the bus stop – such as a tree or a mailbox– contributed by volunteers.
Inspired by this project, our team wants to create a welcoming community experience with the aim of putting those with visual disabilities in front.
We are creating a campaign experience, in which the people of Pittsburgh community learn about the campaign mission through different promotions around the town, and grow together through the digital experience, of describing the unique locations and experience in the neighborhood via landmarks, that utilizes crowdsourcing. The goal is to make the unique community experience to be accessible to everyone.
Problem
Solution goals
Landing on the idea
Synthesis
The solution goal centers around the experience and interaction of the new neighbors with visual impairment and the existing Pittsburgh community.
The three groups of people/organization that are at stake are:
Community Members (pre-existing neighbors of Pittsburgh, digital-natives)
New Neighbors (new and diverse members joining the community, may have visual disabilities)
Local Health Enterprise (doctors, nurses, specialists, clinics, and hospitals such as UPMC, our client)
Stakeholder mapping
User journey mapping
Storyboard
Bridging the gap between new patients and Pittsburgh communities to create a more inclusive and empowered space: A digital campaign experience that utilizes crowdsourced stories from Pittsburgh community members to prompt new visitors to get immersed in their neighborhoods through exploring the stories that are important to each community.
Ideation
User flow
Wireframes
Color palette
There are two major parts to the experience; onboarding experience and the core experience. Users get to register or sign on to be the part of the SEEPITTSBURGH community and then go in to the core experience centered around the "contributing" experience.
High contrast, friendly colors that give sentiments of welcoming and colorblind-friendly colors for people with different colorblindness since this app/campaign in designed for the community to embrace the inclusivity for the visually impaired
Onboarding
Contribute stories
Accessibility hints
Itinerary and stories
Introduce the core goals of the campaign experience
Share your stories about the places in your neighborhood with your own human voice along with the speech-to-text feature.
Finish your stories with the accessibility features and permanent landmark hints to assist the neighbors with visual disabilities who are depending their wayfinding on the GPS, which can be inaccurate under 30 feet level.
Explore the itineraries and stories your neighbors have shared and visit those places
If we were given more time with this project, we’d like to be able to conduct user testing with people with visual disabilities in order to receive feedback on our prototype so that we can further build and iterate on what we have now. Also, we wish to expand this solution in the larger scope so that it could be applied to other neighborhoods and cities too.
I am working on adjusting the type size for better legibility for people with visual impairments; for better accessibility.
Final design & Prototype
Next steps
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