Accessible Mobile Navigation: Convenience to Some Is Independence for Others

In 2014, Michigan State University (MSU), the Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities at MSU, and various other departments at MSU expressed a collective interest in creating a platform to help students with disabilities navigate campus by leveraging the growing mobile application (app) ecosystem. Michigan State University occupies a 5,200-acre campus in East Lansing consisting of around 550 buildings. In order to allow independent navigation for a broad spectrum of students and visitors to campus, it was imperative to recognize that the accessibility of software does not guarantee usability and to not shoehorn a single common method of navigation for everyone. In our efforts to find a means to accommodate visual, motor, and other disabilities, we prototyped a wide range of approaches, varying both user-facing components and architectural entities. Collaboration among the departments of engineering, geography, and data science and individuals with disabilities was vital to creating a holistic environment that encouraged the creation of a tool that benefited the needs of a diverse group. The result of this work is the MSU Guide app for iOS. This article summarizes the approach and reasoning behind the design decisions involved in making a campus navigation app that is accessibility focused yet valuable to all.