Week 4: more desk research and interviews with visually impaired people.
I started this week by listening to different episodes of radio program called In Touch on Radio 4. This program delivers news, views and information relevant for people who are blind or visually impaired. The episodes I listened to were the ones where issues related with mobility and autonomous vehicles were discussed, which helped me understand the insights of actual blind or visually impaired people and test some assumptions I had made so far during this project.
The highlights of the knowledge I obtained from listening to these people’s experiences are the following:
There’s mixed perceptions from blind or visually impaired people towards fully autonomous vehicles: they appreciate the opportunity of greater mobility options but they have safety concerns.
They believe there needs to be feedback coming from the AV through acoustic interaction and it should give different information: from the point of the route they’re at to the functioning of the vehicle.
Some mentioned that they hope AV mobility opportunities will take visually impaired users to a higher level of self sufficiency.
For the next stage of my project I wanted to talk with blind or visually impaired people to conduct generative sessions under the framework of CoDesign that would help me produce ideas that might later be designed and developed. I got in touch with different local associations in Barcelona for blind or visually impaired people. The only one that offered to help me was the ACIC (stands for Catalan Association for the Integration of the Blind), that sent my request to its members.
At this stage I arranged two interviews with two people from the ACIC. Given the circumstances of a global pandemic in which this project was carried, the interviews could only be carried out remotely. This itself presented a difficulty as the only mode of interaction I could explore during these interviews was sound, as I couldn’t let them try tactile interaction remotely.
Regardless of the limitations of doing non-in-person interviews, I tailored them to be as helpful as possible for my project. My goals with these sessions were the following:
To get insights of the experiences of blind or visually impaired people with their mobility
To understand how blind or visually impaired people feel towards AV in terms of trust, opportunities and accessibility
To explore the viability and opportunities of multimodal interaction with AV.
CoDesign approach to the session I want to conduct with visually impaired people, in line with Probes, toolkits and prototypes: three approaches to making in codesigning.
My approach to accomplish these goals was to elaborate an interview that prioritised qualitative data and let interviewees give insights and opinions freely. The session consisted of two parts:
Interview. In this part I would ask the interviewees about their experiences with both private and public transport. Some of the questions I prepared were the following:
When you’re on a cab or on public transport, what do you normally pay attention to in order to identify what’s happening around you?
Do you carry on any activities when you’re on your way somewhere in a cab or public transport? If so, which are they and what tools do you use to execute them?
What information do you consider relevant from your journey and the vehicle you’re in?
Scenarios. In this part I would explain different scenarios in which interviewees would use AV technology and I would ask them about their insights and concerns that might come up.
The reason I wanted to make use of scenarios is because they’re a useful tool to explore how a product or a service can be used in a future from a user’s perspective. In this case, each scenario had been created in order to understand different parts of the experience of travelling on AVs when being visually impaired or blind. Furthermore, while letting the participant give space and time to react to each scenario, I also wrote down some questions that would help arise insights.
The scenarios I created have to be explained by using voice, so I tried to make them as easy to understand as possible whilst being specific. The speculative scenarios used for this session were created following the outcome of the literature review carried out earlier in this project.
The scenarios and its respective questions are the following:
1. It’s Saturday and you have plans to meet with a friend to have lunch in a town that’s 20 kilometres from you and you want to hire an AV to take you there.
How would you like to hire this service?
On your way there, what information do you think should be given?
How should this information be delivered? Through audio queues, haptic signals, or a combination of both?
2. It’s Wednesday midnight and a relative of yours has had a domestic accident and you’re the closest person to help them, as you’re 3 kilometres from them.
Would you trust an AV to take you on this trip?
What options do you think should be given in order to hire this service in this case in terms of service, time, technology?
3. It’s Thursday morning and the AV you’re on has stopped unexpectedly somewhere out of your planned route due a technical problem.
How should this information be delivered? Through audio queues, haptic signals, or a combination of both?
How would you react to this situation? Would you remain in the vehicle, would you call someone…?
What information do you think you would need in order to carry on with your trip with another type of transport?
Bibliography
Elizabeth B. -N., S. and Peter Jan, S., 2014. Probes, toolkits and prototypes: three approaches to making in codesigning. CoDesign,.
Martin, B. and Hanington, B., 2012. Universal Methods Of Design. Beverly, MA: Rockport Publishers.