DUBLIN STREET DRAINS
Project by Qingmiao Zhu, Laura de Burca, Kate Doody
TITLE
Bridge the Gap
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TYPE OF WORK
Service Design
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PROJECT DURATION
2019 Sep (2 Weeks)
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DESIGN BACKGROUND
Using public transport can be a challenging experience, particularly for those with physical and learning disabilities, older people, as well as families. Recent campaigns such as Access for All, A Day in my Wheels and advocacy by organisations such as the NBRU have highlighted the barriers people with disabilities still face. These barriers can be environmental, attitudinal and
organisational, and often occur because the diverse needs of all citizens have
not been considered. Poorly designed transport services do not only hamper a
person’s ability to get from A to B, they impact their opportunities to gain and
maintain employment, continue their education, access community services and have a social life.
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DESIGN CHALLENGE
How might we develop empathy and understanding between users who experience different challenges on public transport and connect passengers who can help with passengers who may need help?
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About the Project
SERVICE OVERVIEW
Bridge the Gap is a people powered Service which connects volunteers with users facing difficulties on public transport, because people want to help but are not always aware of the issues and thus hesitant to ask.
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SOLUTIONS IN BREIF
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BADGE
In this service, Badge works as the key touch point for users who would like to offer help and users who need to be helped. By wearing a badge users recognise each other and create a connection to complete a help.
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The badge is usually needed at the starting point or finish point where people travel, i.e. train/dart/luas/bus stations. A badge can be got simply from a badge vending machine, these badge vending machines will be installed at some key stations/stops.
DESIGN PROCESS
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RESEARCH & INSIGHTS
At research phase, our team and another two teams focused on different public transport means. By sharing each team's research learnings and stories, research outcomes are achieved and used by all teams. We observed at different areas and conducted interviews with different stakeholders. One of the people we interviewed, Sean who is a wheelchair user and often frustrated by the poor infrastructure of public transport services, told us "I refuse to use public transport, and I shouldn’t feel like that. I really, really should not feel like that. Feeling caged, feeling uncertain about public transport." Some of the lifts at train stations we examined were not working and sometimes the message was not updated to the passengers beforehand.
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CONCEPT GENERATING & PROTOTYPE
After making sense of the key insights we've learned, we host a co-creation session with another group of designers from Digit-Hub. We formed this co-creation into a brainstorming activity. Designers are asked to outline or sketch up ideas according to the scenarios we described. Our teams worked as facilitators to encourage the designers to generate more ideas within quick turnarounds. After gathering these creative thoughts together, we voted for a few good ideas and developed them into more solid concepts. The concept our team chose to develop was originally called 'Heart 2 Heart', which later evolved to 'Bridge the Gap'.
Map out the layout of the app which connecting volunteers with users who need assistance.
FEEDBACK & ITERATION
After some low fidelity prototypes with users, we found that most people were willing to help but the idea of using an app to connect people was not ideal., especially for people who have mobility difficulty and people who are not familiar with technology. A retired care worker said she would like to help people with mobility difficulty to buy a ticket but she won't be going on any app because she doesn't know how to use it. So we decided to get rid of the app and keep it simple. By wearing a special designed badge, it's an indicator for people around you and allow them to recognise you as someone needs a bit help or some who would like to offer a hand.
