To get a better understanding of accessibility best practices, I evaluated other WCAG 2.0 AA compliant sites, including some competitors, to form the basis for the new design system.
The next step was to observe some of our visually impaired users, creating user journeys to document their current experiences on the Locomote platform and capturing their behaviours. Additionally, I conducted qualitative interviews with them to learn about other applications and websites they use.
To facilitate scoping and project estimation, I created low-fidelity wireframes and user flows outlining enhancements and changes based on the conducted research. This enabled the team to accurately guage engineering efforts and plan out the sprints needed for the project.
Given the size of the project we opted to enhance the current platform by updating styles, headers, fonts, and colours, along with implementing keyboard accessibility and resolving device-responsive issues, thereby ensuring accessibility compliance faster to market and allowing more time for the redesign.
To kickstart the redesign, I shared the low-fidelity wireframes with the frontend and engineering leads. Through collaboration, we pinpointed the required components and decided to utilise the existing frontend framework for efficiency and customisation. Subsequently, I developed various low-fidelity designs and layouts, evaluating them internally and with 8 users, including 2 visually impaired individuals from the original cohort. This feedback was crucial in iterating and refining the designs, and obtaining internal sign-off.
To manage the significant engineering effort and the number of required sprints, we devised a plan to roll out the enhancements in train releases. This approach ensured that user experience wouldn't be compromised by frequent interface updates that are required for the redesign of the platform also manage my time to produce the volume of assets required.
