Joseph Sotelo

Engaging the LA Library Foundation’s virtual audience through branded graphics and chat moderation.

Help Aloud channel more of its audience to LFLA, the parent-brand. This could be measured by donations, library memberships, etc. Our class was siloed into many teams - mine focused on the livestream experience.

Through our research, we uncovered these main insights: use storytelling to provoke donations; leverage YouTube's built-in chats, polls, and analytics; allowing users to co-create the content of a stream results in faithful viewership.

A new virtual event format that leverages YouTube’s chat features and displays branded visuals. A virtual Q and A time allows viewers to co-create content with the presenters. A pre-stream slideshow provokes donations by telling Aloud's story. Finally, overlays convey LFLA's brand.

Wheelie is an ride-hailing service with autonomous vehicles. This project focused on the app used for booking rides. The target audience is elderly individuals and their child caregivers. This is a common and challenging relationship that many people will experience at some point in their lives. Elderly individuals often rely on their children for rides, but they are restricted to the child’s schedule and availability. Wheelie solves this problem by providing elderly individuals with an intuitive and human experience as they book a ride with an autonomous vehicle. The user can book an entire itinerary through speech interaction with an AI. They can also easily edit their itinerary at any time of the day, giving them freedom and flexibility without having to bother their caregivers. This project was a collaboration with BMW Design Works, who provided us with the prompt and a feedback session at the end of the project.

Many elderly individuals are dependent on their own children as caregivers. This often means that they have to compromise their freedom because they can only get transportation when their children are available. On Quora, we found that elderly individuals said things like “I hope to never put my only child through that burden.” and “If you are looked after by family and friends, you have to compromise”. According to the National Council on Aging, nearly 90% of adults choosing to age in place need accessible transportation. Not only do these strained relationships exist, but the elderly population is expected to double by 2060. We sought to address this growing issue and restore independence to elderly individuals.

We began our project with many forms of research, including interviews, netnography, and field research. I focused on field research. I rode along with an elderly individual as she went through the fill experience of booking a and riding with Waymo. I was struck by her subtle paranoia and distrust of the vehicle and the services. Before entering the vehicle, she even said, “let me write my will first.” We began to ask ourselves how we might help elderly individuals trust these autonomous vehicles more. Next, we had two presentations over the course of two weeks with BMW Design Works. Firstly, we showed them the summary of our research, then we showed them three proposed concepts. The second presentation was very helpful because we were significantly re-routed, and our design direction was focused. Next, we entered into a phase of iterative design. Each week, we conducted usability tests of our app prototypes with faculty and members from BMW. Then we refined our designs and tested then again the following week. This is where we received the recommendation to include a “snooze button” in our app so that the user can stay flexible in their booked itinerary. Then, I turned our mid-fidelity designs into a high-fidelity state. I used a UI library called Shadcn to make design that were accessible to elderly individuals. This required large type and buttons, high contrast, and bright colors. We finished off the project with a presentation at BMW’s office in Santa Monica, where we received in-depth feedback from professionals.

Our final solution is an app that facilitates the booking of autonomous vehicle rides for elderly individuals. There were three main ideas that guided the design of this app. The first was accessibility, specifically for the elderly. All of the main functions of the pp are able to be completed through voice interaction with an AI. This includes the onboarding/sign up provess, and the entire process of scheduling an itinerary for the day. That’s another unique advantage of Wheelie over other ride-hailing applications - instead of just booking one ride, the user can schedule multiple stops and rides at the beginning of their day. The UI itself has large buttons and type, bright colors, and strong contrast. The second guiding principle was flexibility. The user can tap on a snooze button at any point in their itinerary that allows them to delay their next pickup when they need more time. This gives them unprecedented freedom without relying on their caregiver. The third main guiding principle was shareability. When the user books their itinerary, they can share it with their caregiver. This allows the caregiver to monitor their elderly parent without having to be present. All of these solutions were aimed at bringing independence to the elderly and freedom to their caregivers.