When I first drew the Grounded character, I was thinking about how to bring a little warmth into the app. The home feedback included one person who found the mascot and colours friendly. Sarah’s account of the Beacon duck trial gave me another perspective. She described a roughly even split between people who wanted the duck and those who did not. It made me think about how much of the app’s visual character I was deciding for everyone. I wanted the person using Grounded to have a say in that.
I added an option to turn the character on or off in Settings. Someone who likes seeing it can keep it on. Someone who prefers fewer illustrations can turn it off. They can change their mind later. I put the choice in Settings so it is available when someone is deciding how they want the app to look, without asking them to make a decision about the character every time they need directions.
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I want the traveller to be able to change how the app feels while still finding the same gate, directions and support options.
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I designed the character to sit below the part of the screen that tells the traveller what to do. On the gate-change example, ‘Go to A04’ and ‘Show next step’ already tell the traveller where to go and how to continue. ‘Not now’ gives them a way to move on without opening support. I wanted both versions of the screen to make sense through their wording and layout. The character can add expression, and the traveller can read the information without having to interpret what the illustration is doing.
The W3C’s cognitive accessibility guidance on helping users focus describes how distractions can make tasks harder and asks designers to consider which content someone may find unnecessary. I used that question to look at my screens. The character can be a detail someone enjoys while they are waiting, and the option gives them a way to reduce what is on screen if they would rather concentrate on the task. W3C guidance on helping users focus
I would ask someone to find the setting and turn the character off without my help. Then I would give them the same gate-change task with the character on and off. I want to see whether the setting is easy to find, whether the screen still feels complete with the illustration hidden and whether the most important instruction is equally easy to find. I would ask which version they would choose for themselves and whether their answer changes between waiting at a gate and moving through the terminal.