wheel
Not just another day at home.
The Story
Elif is a 34 year old, physically disabled person who lives in Turkey. When she was 6 months old, she had a virus that usually effects brain. However, the illness effected Elif physically rather than mentally and left her confined to a wheelchair when she was 25 years old. Because of muscular and skeletal defects, she is only capable of traveling in her wheelchair for only three to four hours at a time. She has been mostly immobile for most of her life and has had very little contact with the outside world and with other disabled people.
This immobility is related to the fact that, in Turkey, places of business are not required to provide any level of accessibility to those with physical disabilities. In addition to requiring assistance from others to leave the home and interact with the outside world (things which many of us take for granted), she also depends upon others to learn whether or not particular places, roadways, sidewalks, etc. are wheelchair-accessible. When Elif attempts to travel without assistance in her wheelchair, she faces many hazards and often has a difficult time contacting friends and family for assistance. Traditional mobile applications have been of little help.
She has tried to build a network of friends with similar disabilities on Facebook but has often encountered people who are not who they say they are online. In fact, many of the people who have claimed to share her disabilities were simply trying to take advantage of her. This is especially frustrating because the online world should offer her a place to interact with people with whom she cannot spend time with due to her disabilities.
*Because of the distance, I have designed the App based on my current location.
The Purpose
Wheel, is a mobile application that assists and improves mobility by creating safe and easy accessible environment for handicap people. The app is a browser for places, which has easy accessibility features for user. In addition, app allows caregiver to track user's position for safety by using the GPS tracking feature. Most of the social mobile applications do not highlights accessibility or usability of the place for disabled people and yet there are not mobile applications that specifically for handicap people to be a guide for their daily and social life. Most of the time, user needs to do her/his research about place by using social media sites to find or ask a friend to be make sure that place features ramp, elevator or restroom as their needs and safety. On the other hand, user has to deal with unknown person on social media, which is user's concern as a safety.
Wheel is a personal guide for each user who struggles to be free out there and find their needs. Wheel gives them access and inform them, which they might have not known they needed. Users will be surprise to see their personal needs as well as safety, personal network and saving time. The user type of this app may be different because of having different physical disabilities. However, app will keep them together by creating their own environment and let them to be connected in a much easier way.
Some of the earliest development stage with flow diagram and storyboard.
Flow diagram for one of the page
