Towards Designing Mobile Apps for Independent Travel: Exploring Current Barriers and Opportunities for Supporting Young Adults with Down's Syndrome
A. M. Khan, P. Langdon, J. Bichard, P. J. Clarkson, S. Tunnard, L. Dubiel, P. Dunlop, M. Lennon · 2021 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3460943
Summary
This comprehensive study uses a three-cycle Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology to understand barriers to independent travel for young adults with Down's Syndrome (DS) and develop a smartphone app prototype to address them. The research involved young adults with DS aged 16-35 along with their parents and caregivers across Scotland. The first cycle (exploratory study) combined semi-structured interviews with four participants and an online survey of 39 respondents to identify six key barriers to independent living: safety concerns, verbal communication difficulties, barriers to independent travel, inability to use technology, forgetting tasks, and lack of accessible interfaces. The second cycle conducted seven focus group discussions with 20 participants (both DS users and caregivers) to deeply explore travel-specific barriers and co-design solutions. Four main barriers emerged: unfamiliarity with routes, difficulty accessing public transport, lack of suitable technology/apps, and parental anxiety. The focus groups generated 14 design requirements and participant sketches that informed a novel "linear bar map" concept—a simplified journey visualization showing stops as a vertical list with a progress indicator, replacing traditional geographic maps that participants found too complex. The third cycle tested a high-fidelity Adobe XD prototype with seven focus groups, gathering feedback on usability and accessibility issues including text size (minimum 18px recommended), font choices (Comic Sans or Tahoma preferred), color usage (avoiding red in alerts), and the importance of customizable caregiver-uploaded landmark photos rather than Google Street View images.
Key findings
The study identified that traditional digital maps (Google Maps, Apple Maps) are too information-dense for people with DS, who struggle with distance judgment, direction sense, and extracting relevant information from complex displays. The novel linear bar map showing journey progress as a simple vertical list was rapidly adopted by participants and rated highly effective. Key design recommendations include: displaying one instruction at a time rather than multiple; using meters instead of yards for distances; combining text instructions with images and voice output; providing notifications at each journey milestone to both the user and caregivers; including a "help" button for emergency contact; and showing the destination name to bus drivers to reduce verbal communication barriers. The progress bar concept, where a visual indicator fills as users approach each waypoint, was identified as a novel feature not previously applied to DS navigation apps. Participants strongly preferred smartwatches over smartphones for safety—phones were targets for theft and could be lost, while watches stayed attached. The study found wide variation in cognitive abilities among participants, but most could use smartphones for education and entertainment. Font size of at least 18px bold, appropriate icon/text combinations, and avoiding anxiety-inducing colors (red) were critical accessibility requirements.
Relevance
This research provides detailed, empirically-validated design guidelines for navigation apps serving users with intellectual disabilities—applicable beyond Down's Syndrome to other cognitive conditions. The linear bar map concept offers a concrete alternative to traditional cartographic interfaces that accessibility practitioners can adapt for wayfinding applications. The PAR methodology demonstrated here is exemplary for inclusive design research: involving users with DS directly in interviews, co-design sketches, and prototype testing rather than relying solely on caregiver proxies. The study's finding that participants conducted separate interviews with DS users before joint sessions with caregivers prevented caregiver views from dominating—a methodological insight for accessibility researchers. For organizations developing transit or navigation apps, the specific requirements (progress bars, caregiver shadowing features, emergency help buttons, landmark-based rather than map-based navigation) provide actionable implementation guidance. The research also highlights that "travel training" by parents/caregivers remains essential alongside technological solutions—apps support but don't replace human preparation.
Tags: Down syndrome · intellectual disabilities · independent travel · public transport accessibility · wayfinding · mobile apps · participatory action research · co-design · navigation · cognitive accessibility