Nimisha Malreddy
Product Designer & Researcher based in New York City🗽🍎. Currently a Product Design Intern @ The Met Museum



About
Resume 
Art & Design 


Accessible Travel Itineraries through Expedia .



Role
UX Researcher
Product Designer

Type
Academic
Contribution
Research
Testing
Interface design
Prototyping Duration
3 weeks

Team
Self + 2 Students





Did you know?

1.6 billion i.e. 15% of the global population face mobility challenges 
and dreams to see the world.





Meet Alex 👋🏼
A young 28 yr old working professional who has been mobility challenged since birth. They belong to 15% of the global population that is disabled and dreams of seeing the world.





Talking to others 💬

We spoke to more people with mobility challenges and we discovered new wishlists and more about their current experiences of travelling. 
(Our research was limited to individuals with mobility challenges for the sake of simplifying our proposed solution)

The data helped formulate a Competitive Landscape of what users currently have access to and charting the Accessibility Wheel: This wheel is inspired by Microsoft’s inclusive design persona spectrum. We highlighted the segments of the circle that a particular app solves for a user. (Credits to Sneh Ganjoo)


Fig. Competetive Landscape
Fig. Accessibility Wheel





What users wish for 💫
End-to-end planned itineraries
Access to medicare
Comfort
Trust-worthy
Memorable

The conversations we had with Alex and others along with the analysis of the market helped us sketch out a brand new end-to-end travel experience within Expedia, catering to users with limited mobility.

“I always want to know if accessible facilities are available at the destination while planning” - User C
“I wish there were tour options with guided assistance” - User F





How might we...

...Design and provide a more inclusive travel experience for individuals with mobility impairments, for an improved, enjoyable and safe travel experience?



We plotted a user journey map to understand where the pain points are and how we can solve them. 

Fig. User Journey Map







Initial designs, testing and feedback 

Testing for each part of the design process was done in the form of gallery walks. Each tester was given post-it notes to express their feedback on what they liked or did not like. Lastly, the highfidelity wireframes were tested through a prototype.





Here’s how Alex can book a trip 🚗
Alex discovers that Expedia now has a new segment called ‘Trips for All’ and decides to explore it. They see that there are trips available in Canada and explores the accessible itineraries available for that region. 





After Alex books their trip, they can access their itinerary in the ‘My Trips’ section of the app. Along with this, Alex can also view information about the nearest doctor or care center in that area with the help of the ‘Doctor near me’ map.








Detailed user flows  

Flow #1: Exploring accessible travel itineraries (Trips for All)




Flow #2: Viewing itinerary and accessing nearest doctor information (Doctors near me)







Inclusive design considerations ♿️

1. Introducing the ‘Accessibility Score’. This score is given by users and it rates destinations from 1-10 considering factors like access to elevators, escalators, transportation, etc.  2. Icons respresenting different factors like transportation, medicare, etc are colour coded to signify their availability (Red- Unavailable, Green- Available). 3. A smart cane can be integrated with the app as a form of an intelligent assistant. ‘Voice Mode’ provides real-time audio descriptions delivered directly to a smart device. ‘Doctor near me’ map provides nearest healthcare center info.






Limitations and challenges
The aim of this project was to think outside the box and come up with a creative solution of making travel accessible to everyone. Like any project, this one came with some limitations and challenges too:



🔍

Our research was limited to individuals with limited mobility for the sake of the sake of simplifying our proposed solution.
🌎

We noticed that ‘Trips for All’ would have 
limited destinations since it would require a travel expert to visit the locations and plan accessible itineraries.
👥

It was important that we keep in mind two kinds of users- one with the disability and the other who is the caretaker of the individual with the disability.






Future scope



🫱🏼‍🫲🏽

The ‘Trips for All’ idea, in our opinion, will work best when Expedia collaborates with travel guides and enthusiasts to make these itineraries.
♿️

Broadening the planned itineraries to accommodate not only individuals with mobility impairments but also those with diverse accessibility needs.
🏥

Expanding the scope of the ‘Doctor near me’ map to include a broader range of Medicare information to increase it’s appeal to users.






Appendix 
Low fidelity wireframe exploration 
High fidelity prototype
Figjam file