Excuse me, where is the nearest loo?
Please note - these are a work in progress, designs are likely to change based on User Testing/Research.
Every so often the Scottish Tech Army receives a request to realise a project that has a real wow factor - obvious social benefit and impact that will be useful to very large numbers of people. As soon as you start talking about it to people you can see the lights go on. Even better when such a project connects with a basic need we all have: using a toilet. As you are reading this, I would like you to think about where your nearest accessible toilet is and how you are going to get there - and what it might be like to get there as a wheelchair user or a visually impaired person. Wouldn't you want an app for that?
Over a year ago the Scottish Tech Army (STA) teamed up with Euan’s Guide, a very popular website dedicated to providing information on accessibility to disabled people and their friends and family members. Euan's Guide is a well-established organisation that provides detailed information on hotels and entertainment venues, which allows disabled people and carers to plan outings and trips. Users of Euan's Guide normally plan their travel in great detail in advance to make sure they can access places and use facilities. Many of them have had negative experiences, suddenly facing obstacles when travelling or visiting places, such as a step that nobody bothered to mention on a venue's website. Euan's Guide allows users to review venues and upload pictures, which can help other users explore new places.
Many users reported wanting to be more spontaneous, as well as needing to be able to respond to the unforeseen whilst travelling. A situation can quickly become very stressful if the only accessible toilet one knows about and planned to use happens to be out of order or used as a storeroom. The idea with which Euan's Guide approached the STA was to build an app that lets users quickly identify the nearest accessible toilet or changing place and to provide detailed information including pictures for it.
For the STA this was a great opportunity for a deep dive into the realm of accessibility in tech and the real world. We assembled two teams, one to conduct the UX research and create the design, and a second team to build the app. A lot of coordination was needed across teams and with Euan's Guide, as well as procedures that had to be put in place that allowed for continuity over time as individuals joined and left the teams.
The UX research and design team was made up of individual volunteers from the STA community and they took responsibility for conducting detailed interviews with existing users of Euan's Guide. It quickly became clear that different types of users had very different needs. For example, powerchair user were very aware of how much battery capacity they had left and hence how much further they could still travel safely. Many users had issues with fine motor control and found navigating through screens on a mobile device difficult. Some people used additional technology on top of their mobile devices to make them accessible. Another set of requirements came from visually impaired persons for whom a map view was unusable.
Without detailed interviews and real dedication to listening to users and understanding their needs it would have been impossible for the team to suggest a design that would work for users. Above all, interviewees reported back that they hated having to ask for directions or to get access – independence was the number one priority for them. One key design feature of the app needed to be simplicity. Euan's Guide was clear that the app shouldn't be a mobile version of its website but that it needed to be as simple as possible to navigate for users. The idea was to find information on the nearest accessible toilet with a minimum of clicks. Another problem, which was clear from the start, was that it would be impossible to build one app that would be fully accessible for all users.
In discussions with Euan's Guide the design team decided to prioritise three user profiles, those of a blind person, a carer and a powerchair user. This led to another critical requirement for the app, namely that information had to be accessible in two different formats: as a map view for powerchair users and as a list view for people with visual impairments that used a screen reader. Finally, the design team continued to grapple with the tension between adding more functionality – wouldn't it be nice if we added x? – and keeping the design as minimalist as possible so that the app could be used quickly and easily.
Enter the developer team, which was made up of software engineers and a business analyst from BJSS, one of the most active member companies in the Tech for Good Alliance. The team from BJSS was delighted to get stuck into a challenging project that required extending their skills both technically and with respect to accessibility. Their usual work did not include building mobile apps, so this project was an opportunity for them to extend their skills. Being able to show a finished app to often risk-averse commercial clients may allow them to broaden the perceptions of its current technological speciality and improve its future competitiveness. It also gave members of the team a chance to try out new roles and to research building accessible tech.
One of the things the developer team had to grapple with was building for both iOS and Android platforms in React Native, especially since each platform implements map reader functionality in a completely different way. After a lot of research, they confirmed the technical limits of a build in React Native and established a very fruitful feedback loop with the design team on designing around what was technically impossible.
The app exists currently as a prototype, which the developer team has handed back to the designers and UX researchers to test with real users. A formal launch is envisioned for summer this year.
The 'toilet finder app', as it has been lovingly called, has been a unique project for the STA with an enthusiastic and dedicated team of volunteers from different Tech for Good Alliance member companies bringing it to life. It highlights what the Tech for Good Alliance can offer: Good causes get access to technology specialists free of charge, volunteers from the industry can upskill and network, and company teams can extend their skill sets and portfolios. However, this project could only happen through focused support by a middle layer: An organisation like the Scottish Tech Army that is able to reach out to volunteers, organisations and charities alike and to galvanising them into building tech that helps communities and end users. These elements combined provide an excellent example of the power of an ecosyste mapproach to tackling challenges that would be hard for any one organisation to deliver.
About the Scottish Tech Army:
The Scottish Tech Army was founded in April 2020 by Edinburgh-based entrepreneurs, Alistair Forbes and Peter Jaco, to help charities and other organisations dealing with the massive impacts of Covid-19 on the economy and society. It is a volunteer-based not-for-profit community that provides impactful digital solutions to support a wide range of civil society organisations delivering social benefit. Its enduring mission is to mobilise the UK’s tech talent for good and to aggregate, amplify and augment the tech for good ecosystem in Scotland.
https://www.scottishtecharmy.org
About Euan's Guide
Euan’s Guide is the award-winning disabled access charity best known for EuansGuide.com, the disabled access review website with thousands of reviews written by disabled people for disabled people. Euan’s Guide also makes tens of thousands of accessible toilets safer through the Red Cord Card scheme and amplifies the voices of disabled people by running the UK’s largest and longest running Access Survey.
The charity was founded in 2013 by Euan MacDonald MBE, a powerchair user and his sister Kiki after Euan was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease and a lack of disabled access made everyday experiences stressful. Having access to good quality disabled access information inspires confidence and removes the fear of the unknown. It breaks down the barriers of exclusion and makes it easier for disabled people to find great places to go.
Euan’s Guide is on social media @EuansGuide
https://www.euansguide.com
UX and Design team
Led by Ricky Callaghan the UX and Design team also included STA volunteers: Theresa Mullins, User-Centred Researcher; Jennifer O’Hara, UX Designer.
About BJSS
For over 30 years BJSS has delivered high quality, world-class technology solutions to the world's leading companies. It delivers complex enterprise software by aligning engineering, advanced technology, user-focused design and its collaborative delivery approach. Its mission is to be the number one partner its customers trust to deliver the complex technology solutions they need to transform and thrive. It achieves this by nurturing talented people and being straightforward to work with.
https://www.bjss.com
Written by: Gudrun Stummer
