I began by thinking about travelling with Summer and how much preparation can sit behind a journey that looks straightforward to someone else. My experience of travel, dyslexia and family life shaped what I noticed. The questionnaire made me look again at what independence might mean. Some people described wanting to do things alone. Others described support as part of what made independence possible. I carried that difference into Grounded by giving the traveller a way to decline help and still get where they need to go. ‘Not now’ became one of the most important decisions I made because it put my interpretation of independence into an action the traveller could take.
Choosing one gate change gave me a way to bring the research, interface and build together. I could trace a clear line from a participant describing the stress of a boarding-area change to a screen that puts the new destination first. Keeping B12 labelled as the previous gate gave the change context. Putting A04 and the next action together made the hierarchy practical. The same decision carried into the route, where the destination stays visible as each instruction changes.
The strongest moment in the accompanied airport trial was seeing the traveller pause, choose ‘Not now’ and return to their route. That was a small interaction, but it was one I had specifically designed around. At home, the comments on the mascot and colours showed how the tone could come across as friendly. A separate family review led me to make the type clearer and cut words. Those experiences helped me assess individual decisions instead of asking whether someone liked the app as a whole.
I spent longer than planned narrowing the research. Sketching and building started later as a result, which left less time for structured testing. In v0.3 I also spent time making the alert look resolved while the return after ‘Not now’ was still unclear. The graphic detail gave me something to show, but the questions I most needed to answer sat between screens. If I started again, I would make the gate change, the first direction and the return to the route interactive much earlier. I could then observe someone using them while the work was still rough enough to change quickly.
Building in SwiftUI brought its own lessons. The flight data limited the journeys I could look up, and wearable setup turned out to demand more knowledge than I had assumed. Debugging helped me see the difference between a feature working after I had set it up and a person being able to start using it on their own. I would test that first encounter earlier next time, with no explanation from me unless someone asks for one.
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The question I now ask of a screen is what someone can do with it. I want to know what they understand, where they go next and whether they can change their mind.
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The airport trial showed a return to the route during one accompanied journey. It left open whether the person understood the new gate and next action without help. The home reviews gave me another view of the interface and setup, while my own testing told me whether specific interactions ran. The small, self-selected questionnaire and its written format also shaped what I could learn at the research stage. I chose written questions so people could answer at their own pace, though interviews would have let me follow up on ambiguous answers. I made the design decisions myself. In another phase I would bring autistic collaborators into the choices about what to build and what a useful outcome looks like.
Animation taught me to think in sequences. Graphic design taught me to make information legible and give it an order. Building Grounded made me responsible for what happens when someone taps, declines, gets an old result or arrives from a different screen. I found that I enjoyed following a visual decision far enough to see how it behaved in someone’s hands. I also learned to be more specific about what needs evidence. A calm-looking screen, a working interaction and a traveller knowing what to do are three things I can examine for themselves. That is the kind of judgement I want to bring into my next project.