Final Design Overview: SeePittsburgh
Dec. 17. 2020
Outline
- Context
- Current Problem
- Solution: SeePittsburgh
- Next Steps Q & A
Context
UPMC Context Christine
There is going to be a new UPMC Rehabilitation and Vision Tower that will bring in new and diverse people to existing neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, notably Uptown. Because of this, we want to focus on the interaction between the incoming patients and existing community.
Paint Points
For patients visiting the neighborhood, who have visual disabilities, the lack of confidence and trust they have in a new community trickles down into similar attitudes towards their experiences with the community’s local healthcare provider — resulting in them feeling unengaged and anxious in conversations with their doctors.
For existing and developing neighborhoods that are bringing in a diverse range of people to the city of Pittsburgh, we recognize that current day-to-day interactions between visitors and the existing community are not entirely inclusive of people with visual impairments.
Problem & Solution goals
How might we motivate sighted people, who have limited experiences with people with visual impairments, to want to learn to understand and empathise with people with visual disabilities?
From our research and insights, we found that currently, visual impairments are in the top 10 disabilities among adults, yet studies show that more than half of Americans do not feel comfortable around people who are blind.
For existing solutions, there exists little resources and opportunities for sighted people to learn about and understand the experiences of people with visual impairments. Thus, people tend to rely on their personal biases and misconceptions, which results in barriers to inclusion and prevents social progress.
To counter these issues, we want to encourage our audience to be able to recognize their personal biases and preconceptions, practice better understanding and empathy, and be able to overcome any potentially awkward and uncomfortable barriers that they face with people with visual disabilities.
Final Solution: SeePittsburgh
Now we are introducing you to our design solution, SeePittsburgh, an experience that is crowdsourced by Pittsburgh neighborhoods, made to prompt new visitors to explore stories that are important to each community.
Experience Story 1: Emma
Meet Emma. Emma is an existing community member in Uptown who’s lived in Uptown for 16 years.
As Emma walks through her neighborhood, she notices posters talking about a campaign that has to do with her community and she wants to get involved. Once she visits the website and learns about the campaign, she feels encouraged to download the app in order to share what she knows about Uptown to new visitors and patients.
Link to live mobile prototype: https://www.figma.com/proto/ZJjWRvBtVVnV8LZQ5uYhWL/Senior-Research-Studio?node-id=1072%3A883&scaling=scale-down
She goes through an onboarding stage and is introduced to the core goals of the campaign experience — sharing stories that make the neighborhood special and exploring stories to get to know the neighborhood better.
Emma wants to tell the neighbors her story of a particular cookie shop she visits on weekends with her family. She goes to “contribute” to add her story. She inputs the location, Auntie Anne’s Cookies, and adds a photo she took of the cookie display with an image description to help people with visual disabilities understand what the image is. Finally, she begins to record herself telling her story about how special this place is to her and her family. As she speaks, her words are also written through speech-to-text for people that may be unable to hear her storytelling.
She finishes her story by giving it a fun title. On the next screen, she is prompted to provide any accessibility information to help visitors determine if it’s an accessible location for them to visit. She is then prompted to provide hints that would further help people with visual disabilities find the location. The hints consist of describing permanent landmarks on the left and right of the story location, as well as any additional clues — in this case, Emma knows that the scent of cookies can be smelled from a block away.
Experience Story 2: Alex
Meet Alex! Alex is a UPMC patient with visual impairments.
He is currently visiting Uptown for his first appointment at the UPMC rehabilitation center, where he will begin visiting regularly for his appointments.
Alex is feeling pretty nervous about his appointment because he is uncertain about what the community is like and how the health provider would treat him. However, he learned through his social streams that there is a campaign called SeePittsburgh, an application with stories from Uptown community members who want to welcome new visitors.
Link to live mobile prototype: https://www.figma.com/proto/kWvqFdOgO4CNbyL8AheUN8/SeePittsburgh-Alex?node-id=1%3A484&scaling=scale-down
In the app, Alex’s screen reader picks up a lot of stories from locations all around him.
Wanting to explore the stories that the community recommends, Alex goes into the itinerary section of the app. He is given the choice of either creating his own itinerary or use an existing itinerary curated by the community.
Alex suddenly picks up the scent of baked goods nearby. He goes back to the map and decides to press on a story nearby. The location he presses on is Auntie Anne’s Cookies and the featured story for that location is Emma’s family cookie story!
He clicks into the story and hears Emma talking about how important this bakery is to her and her family.
Curious to try some cookies himself, he decides to find the story’s location. After clicking on the “start directions” button, Alex is given auditory directions based off of his location and GPS tracking. Once he is close to the store, landmark clues are read off to him to help him better find which store is the right location.
Once Alex is there, what a surprise! Emma is there too. Emma, after having experience telling stories within a space that encourages welcoming visitors and newcomers with understanding and empathy towards people with visual disabilities, walks up to Alex and starts up a conversation. She even suggests what cookies are the best.
Alex leaves having formed his own stories in the Uptown community, feeling more comfortable and welcomed, he feels better about his regular visits at the rehabilitation center and feels more comfortable talking to his doctors.
Visuals that we created
Building a community of trust
From listening to and experiencing the stories that make the neighborhood special to the community, visitors and community members will be able to trust and build stronger personal connections with one another.
For community members, this experience will facilitate them to be able communicate with inclusivity and understanding in mind. By building real connections with people with visual disabilities, community members will learn to go beyond their personal preconceptions and biases.
Next steps
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.
Reflection
We would like to give big special thanks to the UPMC Enterprise team who have given us the amazing opportunity for the project, to Kristin who’s advised us throughout the entire semester and made time outside of classes to meet with our team ❤ , to our amazing TA Laura, and to everyone who had given us help during the process.
