Prior to the 3-day onsite event, teams were allowed to strategize & do pre-work. Our team originally agreed to undertake the booking experience challenge. We brainstormed and researched. I did a bunch of research on my own and asked wheelchair users in my network to share their booking experiences.

Our team also went to SEA-TAC airport to interview the head of the official wheelchair vendor there. We also observed their operations in their control room and around the airport.

Customer Side

However, on the 1st day of the onsite event, we discovered that 80% of the participating teams, including us, wanted to tackle the booking experience. Ironically, based on our interviews and discussions with actual wheelchair users present at the event, they consistently said that their most painful travel experience actually comes from not having sufficient information about the status of their device while it is in transit.

We learned:

1. 1 out of 5 people who fly with wheelchair gets their device mishandled


2. Most wheelchairs are highly customized depending on unique user needs.


3. Due to their customizable nature, wheelchairs are hard to repair or replace.


4. It’s not uncommon for wheelchairs to cost as much as a car.


5. Reporting a damaged or lost wheelchair is a tedious process especially if there are multiple airlines & airports involved.

Business Side

From the business side, we learned:

1. Airlines and airports don’t have a centralized system for tracking wheelchairs throughout the journey.


2. Having the detailed information of each passenger’s wheelchair is crucial in determining how to handle them properly. (ex. type of battery, which parts are detachable, etc.)

With only 2-days left, our team decided to pivot. It was a hard decision because our prior work, which I was heavily involved in, has to be abandoned and we have to start from scratch. I was hesitant to agree with the team’s decision but knowing it was ultimately best for the users & best for our team, I agreed and only slept 2 hrs the 1st night working with my fellow designer.

My co-designer and I worked through the night to organize the user flows. We came up with a separate flow for the vendor (airline/ airport staff) and the customer (wheelchair users).

To rapidly move on to wireframing, we kept the user flows really simple.

Brand Name & Colors

Because it wasn’t part of the judging criteria, we spent the least amount of time on branding. We decided to use Alaska Airlines' company colors for our design since half of our team works there.

I came up with the brand name “WheelTrack” which is a portmanteau of “wheelchair” and “tracker.” The pronunciation all sounds like "We'll track." The shorter version of the project's promise - "We will track your devices for you."

Typography

With Android as our base, we used Google’s Material Design guidelines for typography. We used Roboto for the main typeface and Lato for the headings.

Lato was chosen due to its semi-rounded details that give a feeling of warmth, while its strong structure provides stability and seriousness.