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OVERVIEW
How might we help mitigate the biases that university students have about wheelchair users?
PROJECT BRIEF
My team's project brief was to encourage prosocial attitude or behavior change - to create an experience that leads end-users to experience some type of positive transformation, whether it’s a shift in thinking or mindset, the adoption of new habits or practices, or the cessation of current behaviors that have a negative effect on oneself or others.
PROJECT FOCUS
My team and I chose to focus on reducing bias and inequities, as this was an area that we were all passionate about. People often harbor biases and misconceptions that perpetuate inequities against people who use wheelchairs, so we set out with the aim to correct misconceptions and harmful behaviors wheelchair users are subjected to.
SCOPE
UX Research, UX Design, Persuasive Design, Prototyping
ROLE
UX Researcher, UX Designer
TOOLS
Figma, Twine
TEAM
Erica Cruz, Shuqi Yang, Tianying Chen
DURATION
2 months
SOLUTION
We created a web-based role-playing game that allows users to experience the life of someone who uses a wheelchair. We attempted to mitigate implicit biases by leveraging the power of personally-relevant fictional narratives and utilizing persuasive design strategies.
DESIGN PROCESS
OUR END-USERS
We chose to focus our intervention on university/college students.
College students will shape society and the future, and they should know why and how to intentionally contribute to inclusive spaces and cultures that empower wheelchair users: a good start is tackling one’s own biases and behaviors.
RESEARCH
We utilized a variety of research methods to understand the space that we chose to focus on.
LITERATURE REVIEWS
Interventions that centered meaningful interactions between wheelchair users and participants were effective in reducing biases.
These findings informed our persuasive intervention design approach, suggesting personal contact with a wheelchair user (or something similar) paired with counter-stereotypical exemplars could be a productive avenue to reduce negative implicit biases about wheelchair users.
PANEL DISCUSSION BY WHEELCHAIRS USERS
“We need to evaluate and change the culture, every day and together”.
Attending this panel provided invaluable insight into the lived experiences of wheelchair users related to workplace settings that could also be generalized beyond such contexts. These insights, paired with those gleaned from our literature review, point to the frustrating experiences of wheelchair users as they encounter barriers not just from physical infrastructures but also from social misconceptions about their independence, ability, and belonging.
USER INTERVIEWS
Participants who had previously interacted with wheelchair users were more understanding and tended to experience less discomfort and anxiety around individuals that use wheelchairs.
This points to these participants valuing interaction with people in wheelchairs as learning opportunities and being cognizant of possible experiences and needs of people in wheelchairs.
PERSUASIVE AIM
To mitigate implicit biases students have about wheelchair users
We chose to focus on the misconceptions that wheelchair users are less independent and capable, as well as perceptions of people without disabilities being tinged with pity due to assumptions about wheelchair users’ lived experiences.
To deter harmful behaviors towards wheelchair users
Our goal is to deter behaviors such as being patronizing, condescending, or even avoiding interacting with wheelchair users, regardless of the intention of people without disabilities.
CONCEPT EXPLORATIONS
Using the insights from our research, we came up with 60 initial concept ideas and narrowed them down to three.
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DELAYED REVEAL GAME
A web-based role-playing game that allows users to experience the life of someone in a wheelchair
30-DAY CHALLENGE
An app that delivers mini interventions to users daily with the aim of reducing bias
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FOSTERING CONNECTION APP
An app that allows wheelchair and non-wheelchair users can connect and share meaningful experiences via ‘letters’.
We chose the 'delayed reveal' game concept because the other two concepts posed the risk of placing labor upon wheelchair users to educate others (even though it might not be what we intended). We believed that the game would have the most impact on our target users. Additionally, given the limitations of time, scope, and our ability to set up ethical, non-extractive relationships with wheelchair users in time, we concluded that it would be beneficial to lean primarily on pre-existing narratives as input from wheelchair users.
DESIGN ITERATIONS
LO-FI PROTOTYPE
For our low-fidelity prototypes, we decided to develop text-based storyboards that are informed by narratives of people who used wheelchairs.
Our storyboard was heavily informed by Curb Free with Cory Lee’s travel blog, where he details his adventures around the world and shares his travel tips.
“I was surprised when I realized I am actually in a wheelchair.”
“But it was a bit too long for me, maybe because there is only text now...Some visuals may help.”
“Could you please also go into detail about the misconceptions that able-bodied people have of people who use wheelchairs?”
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REDESIGN
I decided to iterate on our high-fidelity prototype to address additional usability issues and clean up the design.
I conducted additional usability sessions with users to address usability issues within the prototype. The main feedback revolved around unclear navigation buttons and information overload, so I sought to address those issues.
OLD DESIGN
MAIN CHANGES
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More visible navigation arrows
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Made the user choices clearer by utilizing buttons
Reduced amount of information on each screen
NEW DESIGN
SOLUTION
Postcards for A Friend
Postcards for a Friend is a choose-your-adventure-style game that uses a first-person perspective. The game tells the story of “you”, the protagonist traveling around the world, experiencing some strange events, and sending a postcard to your friend at each location about what you experienced that day. In the end, the game reveals that “you” are a wheelchair user.
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DEMO
KEY ELEMENTS OF PLAY
UNCOMFORTABLE ENCOUNTERS
To create vicarious dissonance, we let the player experience uncomfortable encounters throughout the game and reveal these are real situations people with disabilities experience.
REFLECTIVE POSTCARDS
At the end of each adventure in the game, the player is asked to reflect on what happened that day for them and to think and speculate on their experience.
MAKING CHOICES
By allowing the users to make choices in the game, we provide them with the illusion of control and a sense of agency.
REAL EXPERIENCES
We adapted real wheelchair users’ story in the game in order to give a voice to people who do experience these events daily due to their disabilities.
PERSUASIVE STRATEGIES
We utilized the following persuasive strategies in our solution in order to encourage behavior change:
EXPERIENCE-TAKING
The user is taking a first-person perspective in-game and has the agency to make limited choices in the game.
VICARIOUS DISSONANCE
Players experience discomfort interacting with in-game scenarios as well as the reflective postcards.
EMBEDDED DESIGN
The delayed reveal hides the goal of changing implicit biases of wheelchair users.
NEXT STEPS
If I had more time, here are additional things I would have liked to explore:
CO-DESIGNING WITH PEOPLE WHO USE WHEELCHAIRS
Since we used Cory’s traveling blog as the main inspiration, I would like to contact him and get his feedback on our interactive experience for future iterations.
In addition to Cory, I would like to also reach out to wheelchair users and gather a diverse group of wheelchair users to collect more data and stories to enrich the game experience.
ACCESSIBILITY CONSIDERATIONS
Design the game so it is accessible for groups with other disabilities, focusing on designing so that blind, low-vision, deaf, and hard of hearing groups can meaningfully engage with the narratives we present without any important elements missing.
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ART DIRECTION
Test out a more hand-drawn style with users to see what style of visuals are preferred for the game.
MORE DESTINATIONS
Add more destinations to the game to add a variety of the experiences in the game. In addition, incorporate more details and activities to do in each destination to enrich the experience.