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WHEEL-LEARN
2023
BACKGROUND
Wheel Learn is a physical therapy program designed for individuals with Spinal Cord Injuries (SCIs). It is the result of a large-scale research project conducted by a team at the University of Pittsburgh, and was designed to help individuals with SCIs address common difficulties that often come with SCIs such as mobility.
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The information of the program was compiled into a large book-like document of several hundred pages. The information was empirical in nature and very "heavy" to consume and digest. My graduating class was approached by the program's creators and asked to create an application - a web and mobile version - that would serve as the program's new form. We were to take the information presented in the "textbook" and reorganize and digitize it, and it was turned into our final project.
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It was an honor to work on this project. In the most broad sense, Wheel Learn is a fitness program designed with a primary focus on accessibility. In a deeper sense, it was a research and evidence-based program designed to help restore mobility, confidence, and autonomy in individuals whose lives had been altered by SCIs.
Desktop Prototype
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CONCEPT
The primary concern with Wheel Learn was accessibility.
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Spinal cord injuries are complex in nature and difficult to simplify. Simply put, a common symptom can be mobility. This can range from total paralysis of parts of the body to impairment of fine motor skills, and we were told to keep all of this in mind while designing the application. Thus, the program had to be built with awareness and with a focus on simplicity to serve the purpose of accessibility.
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A key part of the project whose importance was made very clear to us early on was the idea of customizability and autonomy within the application. Spinal cord injuries are unique and have different impacts on each individual. Likewise, although the therapy plans can be applied broadly, each individual participant works through them at their own pace. This is to account for individual considerations, unique situations, and the inherent variability in pacing. This also helps restore a feeling of autonomy and alleviates some of the pressure - no longer does the plan feel like homework, but rather a self-guided initiative.
DESIGN
The color scheme was designed with contrast and WCAG guidelines in mind, and a sans-serif font was chosen for readability. The overall visual layout was created to be simple and to serve as a direct extension of the program's focus on unconditional accessibility over an aesthetic value. Of course, these two things are not inherently opposed - accessibility and aesthetic value are not mutually exclusive, but more attention was given to accessibility and ease of use. ​​
PROTOTYPING
Prototyping the Wheel Learn program was an intriguing and experimental process. How do you turn a textbook into an application?
There were a number of things we kept in mind when adding the interactivity. I already mentioned the accessibility and ease of use - for example, we used simple, limited interactions to account for a potential user with altered fine motor skills. Interactions were limited and we avoided things like dropdown menus, hovering, or lots of textboxes. I had designed an automatic progress tracker that could be used to return to old modules and check one's progress in a simple, understandable way. Also added was a way to connect with similar individuals and engage in community-building and progress sharing.
This was not a full-fidelity prototype, but rather a way to demonstrate how this program could be turned into something beneficial and easy to use. It was one of the most rewarding projects I had the privilege of working on - something research-backed and academic that truly could make someone's life easier. The Wheel Learn program is, as far as I am aware, still in development.
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