Inclusive Design
Visual Storytelling in Interaction Design | Microsoft Expo 2015
Team: Summer Shang, Olivia Rao, Jessica Chow, Garrick Li, Zhenxi Mi
WeKart is a platform that indirectly facilitates community building by allowing neighbors to share shopping lists and help each other out. Grocery shopping is easy for able people, who can lift heavy items, open doors, reach high and read small text with no problem. This is not the case for a lot of other people. WeKart helps with the nitty gritty details and makes shopping a lot more manageable as well by providing an indoor gps to help the shopper locate unfamiliar items quickly. It also automatically splits the bill and makes paying easy.
The Microsoft Expo topic of Spring 2015 was on Inclusive Design. Our team worked together for 10 weeks on the project. We started out by brainstorming the various situations we could apply inclusive design and narrowed in on the ones we would have the most impact on.
Shopping for groceries is a necessity, but more often than not, these spaces are designed with only the able bodied in mind.
I worked with Garrick to film and edit the concept video.
Primary and Secondary Research Insights
Primary research (on-site research):
There are a lot of physical barriers in the store that prevent visually impaired and physically impaired individuals from having equal access in the store
Secondary research (online articles, research papers, existing applications):
28% of people aged 65 and older live in social isolation, which can have negative health implications.
There is often confusion with the layout of the store and the visual design of the labels
Opportunities
Help create a more closely bonded community
Make labels easier to understand
Allow the community to easily find the best products that fit their needs
Target Audience
We wanted to create a solution that could empower those who have difficulty navigating the store and buying items. Shopping is a necessary chore but often aren't designed with everyone in mind, so we hope to help bridge the gap with our solution.
Ideation
During the ideation stage, we realized that there were a multitude of problems that affected the accessibility of the store, as people had varying capabilities.
We decided to combine people's need for a closer community and navigating grocery stores into one app. This app is like a community billboard that has the following functions:
Share and combine shopping lists
Helps the user navigate through the store in an efficient manner to help locate the items on the list
