Sophia wanted to put her own spin on a steak cooking class.

​​She thought about hosting as a course instructor. She also wanted to be both thoughtful and precise about the whole teaching thing. So, she went to her phone.

​​She didn't immediately think about anything else beyond creating the booking on the AccessiCity app. It was part of a plan.  The plan was to take in some sights.

At her last trip out of town to New York, she and her friend experienced horrible accommodations at a hotel that had a first come, first serve policy. Those rooms that had appropriate accommodations also happened to have the highest tendency to become fully booked, regardless of reservation type or the actual needs of the reservation holder.

Sophia’s effort to try and forget the whole experience was simple: Redo the class with her own spin it. Take at a place of her choosing but provide the 1-day how-to course under her conditions. It is more work, of course. But as a result, she will bring a more inclusive event.  She can also do this at any town she wishes. Today, she'll start with strategizing. First order of business is picking the time and place for her own cooking class.

Utilizing Event Metadata

Dining accommodations were overlooked on the part of a re-booted steak restaurant Sophia visited in New York. She felt like she was showing up at random, even though she had made a reservation by phone.  Worse, a little preparation could have gone a long way to take this issue to an early fix.  

Using detailed metadata, AccessiCity gives an accessibility score to any place that can accumulate reviews. Can a score let you predict a solid effort by an establishment? To Sophia, the steak restaurant’s recent past clearly shows a track record.  To AccessiCity, the trends in user reviews are firmly identified.

Untested Problem

How might Sophia find something out about the  poorly performing accessibility history of a hotel or restaurant sooner? She asked her friend, Meghan, to seek out reviews on her phone. They might be able to look up ratings that way on a website.

She asked her friend, Meghan, to seek out reviews on her phone. They might be able to look up ratings that way on a website.

Current State

Let's say the metric exists, and something similar to an accessibility score based on existing reviews can help.

AccessiCity predicts how her specific requirements would work out in the sphere of accessibility, taking it beyond reviews.

It is now the early morning of the event. Sophia knows she has a day of driving to get to her destination.

Part of Sophia's hopeful plans was to get to see more friends along the way to Tucson. However, she didn't have the time to get there early.

It seemed like it would take extra time: In case there were accommodation shortfalls, she could mitigate this by arriving early. So, she needed enough wiggle room in her plans.

Directly, Sophia needs a way to know, ahead of time, whether the venue or business is diligent about their accommodation practices.

Taking her first step, she takes control of the cooking class. She had inched slightly towards her goals of creating her own event.

Further along into the day, she sees she has 25 attendees.

The time she set to meet was a good one: Tuesday at 7 in the evening. Now she has a set time to meet. She takes notes on what other completely open events look like.

"There are some reviewers here that seem to know what to look for." Meghan says.

Meghan decided to go on this road trip for a chance to assist in an actual cooking class.

Searching for venues, the two connected on a photo of a small house with a secure, newer-lookin ramp. It was about as good as a bed and breakfast, comfortably distant from the city center.

Sophia and Meghan agreed the AccessiCity app had provided a historical accessibility rating of that location, for their goal of finding a house with an inviting kitchen.

By making this sort of fun event available, Sophia feels she has found a good opportunity to make someone in her own or similar position happy.

Taking somebody else's cooking class is much different than making your own, right? She could use the power of "word of mouth" to her advantage.

Over the most basic things, she has relied too much on word of mouth herself. What cities to travel or what activities to try, all these were proving to not to disappoint when there is a little time for fact checking.

In the past, she might have been required to take an all-nighter's worth of hours to look through reviews. For this type of event hosting, finding a comfortable space was important.

She found it was good luck to include Meghan whenever she searched for information. In this case, the result was a phenominal location.

Ideally, she would want to visit first and then decide. This decision has to be brief, however.

Sophia can't wait to hold her class on making a hearty carrot stew.

What works

With the app in hand, Sophia noticed a few key things. With a general to medium interest level in technology, she asks "What's this for?" as she scrolls on to explore the apps events. “How about this place," would have been the preferred first response from an app creator perspective.

Confusion over what the app does was the first barrier seen in a number of unproctored tests for an initial all-click-through.

A decision was made to explicitly say so on the app, above the fold, what it is the app does.

Sophia is one step closer to not having to dash her eyes around, learning and digging for new features under painstaking circumstances. Basically, she needs to know what the app does.

Greater detail unfolds in the event creation stage next.

But as Sophia is nearing to her friend's place in her SUV, the maps feature on the car's navigation screen also shows that it’s about to run its course. And, in a few hours, she will be getting hungry.

Meghan is waiting for her arrival.

Within the app, creating an event with metadata, or just a set of options, gave her a starting point to her cooking class a success.

On AccessiCity, she was given the option for the type of class it would be and what type of booking, too. Also, she was given the option to include a request for a donation.

She makes sure to include as much information as possible.

Feeling more confident about hosting Many of the failed accommodations she experiences were a surprise to Sarah,

She set her own expectations to a high bar

Back In New York, her attempt at seeking cooking as entertainment became a frustrating side project in futility.

An outlet to channel the old frustration, the app would become a touchstone for a community, or conscious people like Sophia, to make readily available equitable events at standard venues around cities.

Sophia's Solution

"My cooking class is going to be better. I'll just ask for enough money to cover the trip. Then, I’ll see how this goes.  Maybe it will be a hit, who knows?"

She looks at the options.

"Which tags are necessary? Can I come back to this if I'm not sure? Can I see what it looks like to have the photo look the way I want it?

It seems there is a lot of information needed at the start. How does Sophia know if this is the right place to input her class if there is no mention of a time field for her event. What features give her the clue that she is not about to conduct a search besides the rather large long text event description box?

"I'll just fill it out with everything except the circled details, and confirm for myself that I'm on the right track."

As she is going about filling out the event page, Sophia is also looking for ways that can help give her hints as to how the overall process is going. This does not happen in any dynamic way, but is visualized only after she is finished.  Sending the event form when she gets feedback from the system.

Recalling back to the beginning, some click through results indicated that it was hard to immediately determine "what the app is for". Noticing the first pages, it does indeed show no mention of “accessibility” in any way.

Pivoting on the Testing

Biased towards the first design work and the research, it was surprising that there was no mention of reviews, scores, or accessibility at all in an explicit way. This was updated in the subsequent version.

It can be argued that, now, the user knows what the app is for simply because it has been “added” to the mix. The estimations of what would work better can only be derived from having done the tests. It seems it is more about 'how' than it is about 'what'.

The hotels, the people invested in having the app all work for them, and a better quality of life are all working to achieve a balance.

AccessiCity provides a result and it's up to the users to enjoy it enough to provide their own feedback and create their own events.

Creating one or two meaningful events, might be all that it takes to ‘like and subscribe.’ It might seem like a resource for entertainment, however, it's indirect. This app searches for events with only a greater chance of satisfaction, for a specific frustration that exists in the real world. There are no spelling errors.

"There is a 'here it's made for you' vibe that's hard to escape that has has the potential for direct negative consequences."

Stakeholder Details

Alice creates classes with an aligned view that out-of-town experiences should be should be accessible.

Even beyond the pivot, it was hard to tell if it has been a successful change without more time and testing.  Does the app convey that purpose when you first see it open?

Filling out the section to create the event was a little long-winded but it didn't discourage her from being very specific.

The idea of the original botched cooking class was supposed to be a class for meatloaf.  They missed a few details, and posted early.

The only difference to that cooking class was an overlooked part of the venue that was not communicated for a variety of reasons.

Problem

If Sophia is at an event to meet new people, she might be singled out.  Attached as unprepared, any participation by her will already be colored negatively. There are rules in place for accommodations, so why not have them? Sophia needs a part to participate in crucial introductions without the stigma of appearing unprepared. Like people think about when they say "Sophia can help you with that."

Any reflection on this might also weigh heavily on the person who is already getting past a burden of doing extra work or researching the venue.

The hotel, wants a guest to come back.  AccessiCity is already reviewing requests based on an accessiblity score and re-checking that current reviews don’t show a hard deviation into negative territory. The last few moments before it lands into the hands of Sophia has an accessiblity score calculated.   But is it right?