DayAssist - A VR Tool
UX | UI | Accessibility | Hackathon
Overview
At Publicis Sapient, I participated in an office wide hackathon and worked with two other teammates to create a solution for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to help them manage their daily routines and navigate the office. Our team was called the RAD Enablers and our idea was selected as top 5 and given the opportunity to present it live to the judges.
Time
3 days for ideation and draft presentation
Given1 week to prep for final presentation to the judges.
Methods & Tools
User Research Methods
Literature Review, User Personas, Affinity Mapping
Design Tools
Pen & paper, FigJam, Adobe XD, Stark Plugin to check accessibility
Practices
Design Thinking, Product Design, Interaction Design, Visual Design
The Challenge
Design a solution for people with Autism Spectrum to help them manage their daily routines
Our team was tasked to define an idea that will be worked over the 3-day hackathon period. When we began brainstorming for our project idea, our team first decided on what should be our target audience and researched some of the disabilities and how they impact individuals. We decided to design a solution for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) because it is a non-visible disability and many individuals with it find it hard to manage their daily tasks and daily interactions.
Research
We began by looking at the statistics and understanding what people with ASD struggles the most with. Upon researching, our team found that at least 85% of adults with Autism have a college education yet are unemployed ("Autism and Employment Statistics", 2022).
After that we aimed to look at how Virtual Reality can help people with ASD and why it is useful. Our team learned that that VR can help people with autism to develop practical, conceptual, and social skills. It has been also found that VR provides a safe space where people can encounter the source of their fear in controlled ways. Additionally, The gamification ability of VR technology enable people with autism to learn life-skills ("How Virtual Reality Can Help", 2022).
Problem Statement
After researching, our team defined our problem statement, which is as follows:
"People with Autism often find it hard to manage their daily routines. They need extra support to stay on track with tasks, adjust to transitions, and prepare for certain social interactions."
User Personas & Journey
Based on our problem statement, we identified and created user personas. For the sake of this project, we only focused on individuals with ASD; however, in the long term we made sure that the our solution is useful for anyone.
Design Solution
After understanding research and identifying the problem statement, our team came up with the following idea that we designed during the hackathon:
"An all-in-one tool in Virtual Reality (VR), named “DayAssist,” for people with Autism to help them visualize their tasks, get familiar with their office, and prepare for their meetings beforehand. Overall, the tool will enable them to stay focused and organized."
Features Designed
Our designed solution has the following key features:
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A simple view of daily tasks.
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Mark as Done” button to complete a task.
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A clickable speaker icon (not functional yet) to have the task read out loud to the user.
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A calendar similar to Outlook, that provides a button in event description to help users find the path to a meeting location.
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A Virtual Tour of offices to help user get familiar with their office space
Further Possibilities
Since we had limited time to design every feature during the hackathon, our team came up with set of ideas on how can tour solution be improved further:
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Add gamification like celebrating when a user completes a task
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Having a meditation feature with option to reserve rooms in the office
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Include VR stories that will enable the user to practice speaking to groups or role play individual interactions.
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Options to personalize the tool like color, text-size and enabling/disabling voice instructions.
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Ability to sync with wearable electronics (e.g., AppleWatch, FitBit, etc.).
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Research on how can we make it convenient for people with physical disability (such as a user who can’t use their hands or eyes) to operate a VR device.
Reflection
Challenge
The main challenge was the time crunch and coming up with an idea on how can we best design for people with disability. However, each team member was supportive and we made sure to have regular check-ins and divide work equally.
Future Direction
Since it was a short project, we would like to test it with real users and also do a field user research to see how some VR devices are being used in companies and how people with ASD use them to help them with daily tasks.