Making Melbourne accessible for everyone
A mobile app and website designed to help people with disabilities plan accessible trips around Melbourne, built in one week as part of the Accenture Women in Technology Bootcamp.
I led the UX/UI design across both the app and website, which was built in React by the development team.
Service
Role
Tools
The Problem
Planning a trip shouldn't be a barrier
1 in 6 Australians live with a disability. For many, planning a simple trip around Melbourne is unnecessarily difficult
25% of those who don't travel say it's "so stressful it's not worth it" and 22% say it's "just too hard."
Existing tools are fragmented, hard to navigate, and rarely designed with accessibility as the priority.
The Audience
Who I'm designing for
We designed for Australians living with a range of disabilities, physical, sensory, and cognitive. Our research highlighted that these users face not just physical barriers but attitudinal ones too, a lack of trust that digital tools will actually meet their needs.
Key insights:
Users need clear, reliable accessibility information before they travel
Confidence is as important as information — users need to feel certain before committing to a trip
Simplicity is critical — complex interfaces create additional barriers
We designed for Australians living with a range of disabilities, physical, sensory, and cognitive.
These are people who have learned not to trust that digital tools will actually meet their needs. They don't want a workaround. They want something built for them from the start.
The Solution
A chat-based trip planner built around accessibility
A chat-based trip planner built around accessibility. AccessABLE Adventures is a mobile app that helps users plan accessible trips around Melbourne through a simple conversational interface.
Users tell the app where they want to go, and it surfaces accessible landmarks, routes, and detailed venue information - all in one place.
The outcome
A fully interactive app prototype and a live website, designed in Figma and built by the team in one week. The app covers the complete user journey from onboarding through to chat-based trip planning, map view, and venue accessibility detail pages. The website brings the same accessible planning tools to desktop.
Key learnings
Designing for accessibility improves usability for all Accessibility-first decisions
high contrast, clear labels, dyslexia friendly fonts, large touch targets, make the experience better for every user, not just those with disabilities.
Small decisions have the biggest impact
Contrast ratios, button spacing, icon clarity, font choice, these micro decisions directly affect a user's comfort and confidence in using an app.
Collaboration across disciplines makes better products
Working with developers, data scientists, and designers from different backgrounds pushed the solution beyond what any one person would have made alone. Adapting to feedback from team members and mentors was as valuable as the design work itself.
