PathFinder (Test Project)
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Product Design - Interaction Design,Accessibility Research, User Testing, Prototyping Accessibility
4 Months, Launched September 2024
Following increasing global advocacy for digital accessibility, our team recognized a critical gap in navigation technologies for visually impaired individuals.
PathFinder emerged as a breakthrough mobile application designed to transform urban mobility through advanced audio-guided navigation and real-time environmental description.
01 Contextual Awareness
Transform visual information into meaningful audio descriptions.
02 Adaptive Intelligence
Learn and personalize user preferences and navigation styles.
03 Dignity in Design
Eliminate dependency, maximize user autonomy.
You gotta understand the real problem first.
Initial research revealed that existing navigation apps fundamentally failed visually impaired users. (Figure 2.1)
Typical applications assumed visual comprehension, providing minimal audio cues that reduced complex urban environments to sterile turn-by-turn instructions.
Our initial user journey maps exposed significant pain points in existing navigation technologies. (Figure 3.0)
Visually impaired users consistently reported feeling:
The core innovation became our Spatial Narrative Engine—a machine learning system that transforms visual data into rich, layered audio descriptions. (Figure 4.2)
Imagine walking down a street and hearing not just "turn left in 50 meters" but "approaching a cafe with outdoor seating, slight incline on sidewalk, potential obstacle: two chairs protruding."
Traditional touch interfaces became our first major constraint. Visually impaired users required fundamentally different interaction models.
We developed a gesture-based audio interaction system that allowed users to:
Sound wasn't just a communication medium — it was our primary design interface.
Our acoustic designers crafted a nuanced audio landscape that:
Though our primary users couldn't visually perceive illustrations, we designed them to be comprehensible through touch and audio description. (Figure 6.0)
Our illustration approach focused on:
We embedded accessibility into every design decision.
Our team included visually impaired consultants throughout the entire design process, ensuring authentic representation.
01 Empathy is a Design Methodology
True innovation emerges from deeply understanding user experiences.
02 Constraints Breed Creativity
Limitations force revolutionary thinking.
03 Holistic Design Transcends Visual Interfaces
User experience is multisensory and contextual.
04 Collaborative Design Requires Diverse Perspectives
Authentic solutions emerge from inclusive design processes.