Designing Transport Supporting Services Together with Users with Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract

Transportation is an important yet challenging aspect in terms of mobility for persons with intellectual disabilities (ID). Despite positive implications of designing services with users, persons with ID are rarely given the opportunity to be involved in such design processes. In this action design research (ADR) study we involve persons with ID in the design through observations, photovoice interviews and in a staged, yet naturalistic user enactments on a bus. Our research contributes with design insights on transport supporting services and insights on user involvement of persons with ID in ADR. The three ADR cycles showed that people with ID is a heterogenous group of users and as such emphasizes the need for customizable solutions that support cognitive functions such as conceptual understanding of time and location, language and communication abilities, and alerts and notifications. There is more work to be done on addressing how the IT artifact is shaped by the situational context and vice versa for issues such as stress management and autonomy. User involvement is time-consuming, especially in settings where participants are asked to independently follow instruction such as in photovoice, and during naturalistic evaluations with several uncontrolled variables, such as prototype testing on a bus. Our work shows that this is vital for gaining insights into the worlds and needs of persons with ID to inform design.