Project
Ambl : Celebrating our differences
After a week at the Atlanta Center for the Visually Impaired and riding along with paratransit drivers, Ambl was born.
Jun 21, 2018
Jun 21, 2018
9
minute read
Design thinking
Product strategy
Visual design
CLIENT
Routematch (Uber)
SERVICES
Product Thinking
ROLE
Lead designer
Project summary
This is a tale of two apps and how they came to be. The first app was one I designed for the Phoenix transit system Valley Metro. They currently had an app called Ridekick that they had developed in house. Routematch offered some new technologies pairing with TNCs (transportation network companies) like Uber and Lyft. Industry wise it’s known as FMLM or first mile last mile. Below are some of the screens I designed for this experience.
One item of note was being able to classify the trip based on its carbon footprint. The other is a smart ticketing system that we explored some AR tactics with. Like a video with a dancing cactus, or a snapchat style virtual outfit. This was a wonderful project and it was really well received externally as wel as internally. It became a sales showcase item.
Exploration
The second app is a little more nuanced in its origins. We had wrapped the Ridekick app and sales, as well as other internal stakeholders wanted a flagship port of the app for their business lines. We were going to brand it as Ambl, a product named by our Irish team. I wasn’t a fan of the name, I felt it was a bit a slap in the face to the userbase.
I should explain, this particular app was for a customer base that used paratransit tools. The users were either visually or cognitively impaired. The phrase amble sounded to me kind of like meandering. But it was rooted in the concept of a personal ambulance. Anyway, that’s probably an article not a use case topic.
The task was meant to be a simple port of the Ridekick app to something Routematch branded. The primary difference was user onboarding. While Ridekick was a nearly anonymous application, Ambl was for qualified, insurance covered patients. Getting to know the ins and outs of the requirements for our users was a frustrating experience, but we took a stab at it by adding a jump screen that would compartmentalize the actions available on the app.
Then something happened. I went on a field trip to the Atlanta center for the visually impaired. This was an eye opening experience for me and I let the team in Ireland in on the experience. I met with people that traveled via transit and paratransit to get to center. I watched them use their phones. I watched and studied how they engaged with portable technologies. I sat in training classes for children and adults affected by varying degrees of visual degradation.
After that I went on a 2 day trip to visit a para-transit operator in Rome GA. I spoke with the drivers, I sat on rides to pick up passengers when possible and immediately discovered the frailty of the situation. We weren’t building apps for 20 - 30 year olds with low vision. We were building a tool for 8 - 80 year old humans that were living in a world that was often times very dangerous and untrustworthy for them. Our users were challenged with everything from down syndrome to dementia to non-verbal stroke recovery patients. We needed more than just bold buttons and large fonts.
I quickly went to work rethinking everything. This needed to be a tool that wasn’t just easy to use, but could offer dignity to our users. Most if not all apps for this demographic almost spoke down to these amazing people. I wanted to give them something better. Something uniquely wonderful that met them where they were and spoke to them with understanding and compassion.
The second app is a little more nuanced in its origins. We had wrapped the Ridekick app and sales, as well as other internal stakeholders wanted a flagship port of the app for their business lines. We were going to brand it as Ambl, a product named by our Irish team. I wasn’t a fan of the name, I felt it was a bit a slap in the face to the userbase.
I should explain, this particular app was for a customer base that used paratransit tools. The users were either visually or cognitively impaired. The phrase amble sounded to me kind of like meandering. But it was rooted in the concept of a personal ambulance. Anyway, that’s probably an article not a use case topic.
The task was meant to be a simple port of the Ridekick app to something Routematch branded. The primary difference was user onboarding. While Ridekick was a nearly anonymous application, Ambl was for qualified, insurance covered patients. Getting to know the ins and outs of the requirements for our users was a frustrating experience, but we took a stab at it by adding a jump screen that would compartmentalize the actions available on the app.
Then something happened. I went on a field trip to the Atlanta center for the visually impaired. This was an eye opening experience for me and I let the team in Ireland in on the experience. I met with people that traveled via transit and paratransit to get to center. I watched them use their phones. I watched and studied how they engaged with portable technologies. I sat in training classes for children and adults affected by varying degrees of visual degradation.
After that I went on a 2 day trip to visit a para-transit operator in Rome GA. I spoke with the drivers, I sat on rides to pick up passengers when possible and immediately discovered the frailty of the situation. We weren’t building apps for 20 - 30 year olds with low vision. We were building a tool for 8 - 80 year old humans that were living in a world that was often times very dangerous and untrustworthy for them. Our users were challenged with everything from down syndrome to dementia to non-verbal stroke recovery patients. We needed more than just bold buttons and large fonts.
I quickly went to work rethinking everything. This needed to be a tool that wasn’t just easy to use, but could offer dignity to our users. Most if not all apps for this demographic almost spoke down to these amazing people. I wanted to give them something better. Something uniquely wonderful that met them where they were and spoke to them with understanding and compassion.
the result
I'll add more screens here soon, this project was done in sketch and I'm having to go back in time to get them.
final thoughts
Doing the right thing doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to be novel. It can be something that changes lives, if you let it, it can even be something that changes you. I've worked on a lot of different tools over my career and I'm proud of almost every single one, but this one in particular changed me. It wasn't about usability metrics, or conversion funnels. It was about being the change I want to see. It was about moving with kindness. Projects like this only come around once, maybe twice, in a long career.
That's not to say that building banking apps, or to do lists, or even social media apps can't have an impact, as long as they are centered in the human condition. Technology at it's core should be a tool that helps elevate the human experience. The future doesn't have to be a bleak terminator 2 dystopia, if we continue to build for the betterment of society, I'm pretty sure we'll all be ok. This project for me though was about being able to see the expression on someone's face when they finally feel recognized.
final thoughts
The result
Doing the right thing doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to be novel. It can be something that changes lives, if you let it, it can even be something that changes you. I've worked on a lot of different tools over my career and I'm proud of almost every single one, but this one in particular changed me. It wasn't about usability metrics, or conversion funnels. It was about being the change I want to see. It was about moving with kindness. Projects like this only come around once, maybe twice, in a long career.
That's not to say that building banking apps, or to do lists, or even social media apps can't have an impact, as long as they are centered in the human condition. Technology at it's core should be a tool that helps elevate the human experience. The future doesn't have to be a bleak terminator 2 dystopia, if we continue to build for the betterment of society, I'm pretty sure we'll all be ok. This project for me though was about being able to see the expression on someone's face when they finally feel recognized.
I'll add more screens here soon, this project was done in sketch and I'm having to go back in time to get them.