Design for everyone
Since I was a little girl I wondered: what is like to be in another person’s shoes? What would they feel in a given situation? What are their dreams? What motivates them to be like they are?
At every moment I try to feel more like someone else, to understand their stories, to fight against my own personal experience, to detach from myself and understand what happens with others. With the passing of years, this became my way of life, and today I work as a user experience designer, from where I try to get closer to the sensations of users (of victory or frustration) as they navigate any interface.
Redesign with empathy
Some months ago I was offer the chance to redesign the comments module from the site, and inside this component, one of the decisions I took was to highlight the filters, which in Despegar we call “Travel profile”. This means that any user that travel to Miami with their family will not have the same experience as one that did it with their couple, alone or with friends. To highlight this filter we try to reach some level of empathy with the user behind the screen, showing them only the comments of other people who had similar “Travel profile” experience. For example, Vanina filters her results by “family” to know how other families feel about that hotel she’s interested in.
The aim was simple, to bring the user the comments of people who had similar experiences to those they are looking for, and that would be help them reach a better decision. But the problem came when I analyze the icons that represent each different travel profile.
I was appalled to discover that the filters that represent “Family” and “Couple” was represented with heteronormative stereotypes, and how the filters “With friends”, “Alone” and “Business” were represented with only men, leaving no room for women.
Following my principles of empathy at all cost with any user behind the screen, it was of utmost importance to redesign this outdated icons. And that’s how I started to investigate other ways of representing this ideas without showing human figures or fall into gender discrimination.
Couple
This one was very easy. Love is the best way of representing a couple. And what symbolizes love better than a lot of hearths.
Family
When I think on the concept of family, a lot of ideas come to mind: fathers with sons, aunts and nieces, grandfathers and grandsons. A family doesn’t even have to be blood related. A family is actually a group of people with whom you share your life in an intimate way. That’s why to make it as broad as possible, a group of three people, without gender markings and close together was the best way of illustrating such a complex concept.
With friends
Easy. Who are our friends? They are the people with whom we go out, with whom we get together at home, chat, with whom we vent out our problems and laugh until we cry. Other times they are with us to make us feel better, they hug us and keep us company. And when there’s a reunion, there’s drinks, maybe alcoholic or not, but either way a beer icon looked like a proper representation for this travel profile.
Alone
A travel you do by yourself, without regards of your gender. Today many millennials feel the need to find themselves, and so they get on a plane with very little luggage to travel the world. So I decided that the carry-on luggage icon would be a good image to synthesize this travel profile.
Business
Similar to the item before, what represents this travel profile better than a briefcase? Yes, obviously you can take a small luggage with you when travelling on business, but the briefcase that working men and women use to carry their work papers and documents is always present.
In conclusion, the one thing I try to carry out with this icon change is not merely a design update, but to create awareness, that the same goals can be achieved but through media that is inclusive for all users.
Thanks Patricio Diaz for translating this article 💚
Are you passionate about travel, professional challenges and sharing experiences? Join our UX team and help other people like you, to have the best experience while building their travels at Despegar.com. Enter: http://www.despegar.com/sumate/
