TrailGuide

TrailGuide is a conceptual product created as part of a 2-week Adobe Creative Jam at the Tyler School of Art. Our team — myself, Emma Coath, Azaria Godshalk, and Prashansa Thapa — won first place in the judged portion of this competition. Expanded as an individual project, art direction was provided by Jenny Kowalski and Scott Laserow.

The Challenge

Visually-impaired people face unique challenges in trying to lead an active lifestyle. Many also choose to live in cities where required levels of accessibility ensure they can get around easily. Much like fitness, escaping an urban environment for some time in nature is proven to improve mood and mental wellness. We created TrailGuide, a hiking app for the visually impaired, to improve the accessibility of both fitness and nature, and help our users feel independence with, rather than reliance on using our product.

Our Target User

We are designing for severely to fully visually-impaired adults who live independently, and are interested in regular exposure to their local nature. The app can be used with VoiceOver or TalkBack, but can also be used by sighted individuals or those assisting the blind.

The Solution

Our solution to the given problem is an interactive probing cane and an accompanying app to guide our users through local parks and accessible hiking trails. We aim to design something which could provide the necessary feedback without the expense of a guide dog or excessive stimuli of the market’s most common “smart” canes which could distract from the hiking experience.

The handle of a WeWalk smart cane. Bulky, provides potentially overwhelming amounts of feedback.

The features of SmartCane, which perform functions such as light & wetness detection, which should be unnecessary if the user is using even a basic probing cane correctly.

When we spoke with two visually-impaired women about our concept, one who uses a plain probing cane and one who uses a guide dog, both had similar things to say about current “smart” cane offerings. They felt that these devices are overkill replacements for the white cane, especially in a city environment where the dangerous obstacles the device warns you of could just be other pedestrians navigating around you, leaving you confused and overwhelmed by the feedback provided. Our interviewee Max said she felt existing smart canes were “childish,” almost like training wheels for independence, and too heavy to hold and use for long periods of time. For this reason, we hoped to design a minimalist approach to the smart cane, one that focuses more on subtle signals and health tracking than a seemingly impressive array of unnecessary features.

Our Cane’s Features

• GPS: tracked by phone so that the app can be used with or without the cane.
• Heart Rate monitor: to keep track of cardio activity and help calculate calories burned.
• Vibration: to indicate going off trail. This feedback method provides the same deterrent as bumpy terrain would, simplifying the feedback loop. Vibrations are stronger the further from the trail, like “hot and cold.”
• Subtle directions: given by beeping signals at forks in the road or sharp turns. Verbal signals for left and right turns. (i.e. four  beeps signals four  paths. Pause. Two beeps signals you should head for the second path from the left. Vibrations will guide you in the right direction.)
• Multipurpose button: to disable the vibrations if you have gone off trail on purpose with a guide or otherwise. Press again to re-engage and guide you back.
• Marshmallow tip: provides necessary tactile feedback without excessive weight of a ball tip or likelihood of getting trapped in roots and small holes like a pencil tip.
• Emergency button: If you get in trouble, you can program this button to contact a caregiver or emergency services in the app settings. Covered to prevent accidental use.

The App

Our app would help users find accessible trails to explore as well as activate the cane when they’re ready to go on a walk and deactivate at the end. We think that this system reduces the chance of accidentally fully deactivating the cane while walking by having a button on the cane itself.

When we researched accessible hiking across the country, we found that many states and independent sites create lists of trails considered to be “accessible” — meaning they are either paved or smooth gravel paths of at least 36 inches in width. Our team would consolidate this information into a database for TrailGuide, then the app would help the user refine results to trails of their preferred length and proximity.

Mobile User Experience

Our original interface aimed to simplify the user experience by limiting the number of hot-spots on the screen to a top and bottom option for every screen. We thought that with limited assistance from the mobile device’s accessibility features, any user could estimate the location of the top or bottom of the screen when presented with two simple options. Using this basic approach, we developed the initial prototype for TrailGuide.

From developing these initial sketches and user flows we discovered that a strict two-option system was not feasible for every stage of the app, but could be used to keep the motions consistent as the user goes through the app.

Original Group Design

Taking this into consideration, I redesigned the app interface, keeping the top-bottom configuration, but adding button screens and intuitive directional swiping to navigate through forms and search results. In this new version, the home page offers the user the option to find a trail or start a walk — the app’s two main functions — and all past stats are moved to the Account page, while current stats can be accessed during your walk.

Individual Redesign