How to promote respectful spaces for pedestrians: Urban planning, civility, and accessibility
And improve their UX through the double diamond of Design Thinking (2/2).
In this second part, we continue with the second diamond of Design Thinking, focusing on idea development and implementation. I’m reposting the image so you can recall where we are! 👇🏻
If you’ve reached this point without reading the first part, no worries! 😊 I recommend doing so by following the link below:
Diamond 1: Research and Analysis Phase (First part)
Diamond 2: Idea Generation and Implementation Phase (Here is where we are!)
And if you’ve already read it… let’s go! 😼
Here would be the registered user’s feed, the closest companions, the option to search for others, and their personal information.
What have we done for this ideation phase after so much information? Well, yes, a brainstorming session ⚡️. As I mentioned in the first part, with five people having the same information, it’s clear that we’ll have thousands of ideas, so we need to leverage that advantage! 🙌🏻
Here’s how our brainstorming turned out, filled with very interesting and intriguing ideas:
After the brainstorming session, we needed to debate which idea could bring the most benefits to the user, keeping in mind the insights I mentioned in the first part. In other words, an idea that works to reduce the insecurity they feel when going out on the street, raise awareness about people with reduced mobility, and help avoid physical obstacles as effectively as possible out there. To do this, we used the ‘in and out’ priority matrix to clear any doubts, and then we conducted a vote using the dotmocracy technique. You’ll also see that the ideas are color-coded because we grouped them by similar themes.
The ideas, as you can see above, ranged from technological, social, architectural, and even transportation. Therefore, since they were very different from each other and we wanted to investigate each one further, we decided it would be best to conduct benchmarking individually (with five different themes, each one of us would work on the theme assigned by random draw). Then, we would come together again to discuss what we discovered. Our intention with the benchmarking was, first, to see if it aligned with our insights, and then to check if it was an existing idea, how it had been developed, if it was genuinely useful, and, above all, if there was a much better alternative.
After debating our benchmarkings, we decided that the idea that best encompassed the insights and could yield the best results was the concept of a social and collaborative app, where we ourselves assist users in dealing with the obstacles in our streets.
The result? 🎊
This is where the ‘Acompáñame’ app was born, allowing our users to find companionship for going out in the simplest way possible. Whether they need companionship due to a mobility impairment or because they’re users who also encounter too many obstacles when going out and want to go out with someone who understands them. Above all, the focus is on the social aspect of helping each other collaboratively rather than any other aspect. Awareness starts with us.
With this idea, we wanted to further develop the type of product or service, the target audience, the marketing channels, and the revenue sources to make it happen. We addressed this through the business model. In it, we concluded that our product, being an app, could generate revenue by partnering with organizations like ONCE, associations for seniors, and even the government, as well as offering subscription discount packages. We would also place great importance on the social aspect to enhance the users’ quality of life and provide support at all times to ensure they can use the app without any problems:
We also used the value proposition to analyze the key features we provide to users and what sets our product apart from the competition. In this case, the result was clear: to create an accessible app for everyone, that is easy to use and reliable, and that has high social value. In essence, the user should feel that they have social support and want to use it, whether they need to go out for essential errands and require a companion or simply want to walk with another user:
And to conclude, we chose the MoSCoW technique, in which, with our app as the focal point, we must assess what must be there, what should be there, what could be there, and what should not be there:
And with all of this, we were able to conduct another benchmarking, but this time all together and on the same topic: our social app. I consider it a very important learning process, and thanks to all of this, perhaps we have arrived at the solution in a more informed manner! At this point, the work becomes solitary by ourselves.
Finally, the wireframes for the app looked like this:
And the final prototype?
Well, first of all, I believe that something essential for an app that needs to be for all possible users (whether they have physical/emotional impairments or not) is to explain what it is for. That is, an onboarding process with three screens that explain its main functionalities, along with a registration button on the last screen for the user:
When you press ‘Sign me up!’ the next screen you see would be the one below. Here, you can see key elements like the app name, logo, registration and login buttons, and a help button (‘What is this for?’ ¿Para qué sirve?) in case the user wants to view the onboarding again:”
After logging in, we would finally enter the app. The user will has four main shortcuts: Profile, Calendar, Chats, and Favorites. Each screen flow will be explained later. First the home screen:
What happens in ‘Ver todos’ userflow?;
Now, what happens if the user opens a chat on those previous screens?
Futuristic Possibilities
🟢 One of them is that the help button could also lead to a voice assistant for blind individuals or for those who prefer using audio to navigate the app.
🟢 Another possibility is that the app could initially cater to both volunteers who offer companionship and professional caregivers who want to charge for their services. In other words, it could be both a free and a paid service. Users would have the choice of selecting their companions based on reviews, personal familiarity, professional credentials, or simply a good chat connection.
🟢 Related to the previous possibility, in the case of professional caregivers, they would have a different profile from the standard user we’ve seen in the prototype, as they would be charging for their services. This would involve developing a similar but distinct user flow for professional caregivers.
🟢 It would also be appropriate to introduce a subscription method that offers discounts at certain places like movie theaters, theaters, etc., based on the subscription level users have.
In conclusion:
This Design Thinking project allowed us to explore numerous ideas through extensive research and converge on the analysis of the ultimate idea that we consider most useful for users. I found the issue very interesting because it affects us all in different ways, and working with five people with different perspectives was a valuable experience. I appreciate having worked with my colleagues, and thank you for reading both parts of the project!! 🙋🏻♀️
