Carriage

Carriage for Students with Disabilities

Designed an intuitive locations page and interactive map for Cornell's ride service, streamlining tracking for 1,100+ monthly rides and managing locations for 300+ students with disabilities.

CONTEXT

Carriage, a Cornell Digital Tech & Innovation project, addresses the challenges of navigating Cornell's campus and the outdated CULift system. Serving around 300 students with disabilities, CULift suffers from poor user experience and restrictive policies. I worked with the Carriage team to design a locations page with real-time updates on active rides, ride cards, and location management modals.

TEAM

1 PM, 1 TPM, 1 APM,
4 developers, 1 designer

ROLE

Product Designer

TIMELINE

(4 months)
Feb - May 2026

SKILLS/TOOLS

Interaction Design,
Accessibility, Figma

THE STORY OF CARRIAGE

Cornell is not an easy campus to navigate with its steep hills and sprawling student residential area...

An accessibility solution does exist in the form of CULift, a paratransit pre-arranged shuttle program. However, the technical platform supporting CULift is outdated, resulting in a poor user experience on both sides and overly stringent constraints on CULift policies.

Carriage aims to improve the process of scheduling, completing, and monitoring CULift rides for all parties, thus improving Cornell’s accessibility for students with disabilities.

Cornell’s 480-ft slope—32 cars high—means most students face a daily climb to class.

WHO'S INVOLVED IN THE PROCESS?

Learning to design not just for users, but for multiple stakeholders for the first time.

While Carriage is catered to students, there are multiple organizations working behind the scenes making sure the the product is implemented, used, and maintained.

These include...

CULift

Prearranged shuttle service for SDS-approved students. Servicing 300+ students with documented disabilities via 1100+ monthly rides.

SDS - Student Disability Services

Ensures that all aspects of Cornell student life are accessible, equitable, and inclusive of individuals with disabilities.

CIT - Cornell IT

Needs to sign off on all technical aspects of this project as they are the ones who will ultimately have ownership and maintain responsibilities.

ESTABLISHING OUR USERS

Carriage serves students needing rides, drivers fulfilling rides, and admins managing the system.

For the purposes of the Locations page, I focused on designing for the admin user pool. This is because the only users with access to real-time updates regarding active rides are SDS and CULift admins monitoring them throughout the day.

ANALYZING THE CURRENT SYSTEM

Currently, CULift has an inconvenient method of tracking rides across different coverage areas.

The current system is divided into 4 separate parts: (1) The CULift Service Program, (2) The CULift Service Radius Map, (3) The Locations List, and (4) An Excel Spreadsheet.

CULift Service Program

Riders must schedule on an outdated system that is unwieldy and hard to use. Drivers are given printed schedules.
‍
‍Admin Pain Points:
‍‍
• Ineffective communication between riders and drivers
‍
• Canceling rides and letting drivers and students know

Service Radius Map

Locations are divided among coverage areas depending on if they are on-campus (red), or off-campus (yellow).
‍
‍Admin Pain Points:
‍‍
• Same use of yellow leads to confusion regarding different off-campus areas
‍
• Matching locations on the excel sheet to specific coverage areas is tedious

Locations List

Locations are added, updated, and kept in a long list housed in an excel sheet. Admins are responsible for updates.
‍
‍Admin Pain Points:
‍‍
• Tedious process of adding new locations throughout the semester
‍
• Extremely disorganized list, usually just using "control f" command

Excel Spreadsheet

Employees at SDS manually schedule using an excel spreadsheet that is prone to errors.
‍
‍Admin Pain Points:
‍‍
• This process takes anywhere from 4 to 8 hours per day, everyday
‍
• No sort of organization involved, simply an ongoing list

Overall, admins are frustrated with the disorganized and time-consuming aspects of the current system leading to other issues resulting in confusion and miscommunication.

DEFINING A PRODUCT GOAL

Making it easier for admins.

With the Locations page, we made it our goal to provide an efficient and easy-to-use experience for admins to track rides throughout the day while also being able to update and add new locations.

IDEATING ON A SOLUTION

How can we integrate coverage areas, locations, and real-time active ride updates into a single interface?

With the help of some other Carriage team members, we ideated on ways in which we could help admins through a single page providing them with all the information they need in terms of locations.

After brainstorming with my team, we came to conclusion that our solution had to be centered around 3 main values: (1) Privacy, (2) Efficiency, and (3) Accessibility.

COVERAGE AREAS

Distinguishing different coverage areas using colors.

Taking the original coverage area map, I designed a simplified map interface by assigning specific color categories to distinct coverage areas.

This approach not only made the map easier for developers to implement without relying on a complex map API, but it also ensured the map was limited to the relevant coverage areas, simplifying the process for admins and enhancing overall development feasibility.

On-Campus CULift Coverage Area

Cayuga Heights Extension Coverage Area

CULift Limited Coverage Areas (3)

East Extension Coverage Area

Collegetown Extension Coverage Area (2)

LOCATIONS

Making locations accessible and easy.

As admins are dealing with map locations throughout the day, I wanted to make these as easily accessible and convenient as possible. I looked at two different iterations making use of the existing map interface designed above.

Location Card Pop-Up

Detailed Location Card View

Why a pop-up works better than a location card.

While a detailed location card at the bottom of the map provides more information to the admin, it is not necessary. The admin can immediately associate the location to its coverage area with a pop-up. Additionally, with a concise pop-up, admins can easily locate the pin to its direct position on the map.

REAL-TIME ACTIVE RIDE UPDATES

Crafting a ride card for admins.

Ride cards display all the essential information an admin needs to verify and check a ride. There are two versions: a detailed view for the map interface and a preview for the searchable list.

To improve readability for admins who review multiple cards daily, I focused on information hierarchy in my visual design iterations.

Prioritizing ID + Pick Up & Drop Off

Prioritizing Pick Up & Drop Off

Zoomed in Map Preview

A decision based on readability and efficiency.

Admins primarily look for the ride ID and pick up and drop off times when checking a ride. Therefore, I prioritized these details in the order an admin reads a ride card, separating priority information from secondary details. A map preview was unnecessary and repetitive.

Coverage Area Color-Coded Markers

Single-Colored Pick Up & Drop Off Markers

Different colors enhances accessibility and groups map coverage areas with ride cards.

Using the same color for pick up and drop off markers would cause confusion in terms of associating addresses to coverage areas. Additionally, by using different colors, the markers are more accessible for those with color blindness as they pass WCAG AA and AAA compliance.

True Colors

WCAG AAA

Cayuga Heights

#42A5F5

WCAG AAA

CULift Limited

#F3D796

WCAG AA

East Extension

#FF8B9D

WCAG AAA

Collegetown Ext.

#7DDFC3

On-Campus

#484848

Color Blindness (Deuteranopia)

WCAG AA

Cayuga Heights

#699EF7

WCAG AAA

CULift Limited

#FFD1A1

WCAG AA

East Extension

#C7A694

WCAG AAA

Collegetown Ext.

#E1C5CA

On-Campus

#51474A

Designing a simplified ride card for the searchable list.

Taking the color-coded pick up and drop off markers, along with the detailed card design based on information hierarchy, I designed a simplified form.

DETERMINING THE BEST LAYOUT

A small but important decision.

After finalizing the designs for the map interface and ride cards, I considered both right-side and left-side map layouts. Though it may seem like a small decision, this choice significantly impacts readability.

Right-Side Map

Left-Side Map

Prioritizing readability.

To optimize the user experience for admins, the map was placed on the right side of the interface and the searchable list of rides on the left. This decision was based on reading flow as most users read from left to right, making it intuitive to first scan the list of rides before focusing on the map details.

INTERACTION DESIGN

Making admin interactions a great experience.

When designing the interactive experience of Carriage, I aimed to make interactions seamless and clean, ensuring consistency with the brand while providing admins with the easiest possible experience.

Hover state for locations and pop-up.

Selected car state + ride card pop-up.

To distinguish a selected car from an unselected car on the map, I decided to design an in-motion selected state indicating to the user which car they are viewing.

Unselected State

Selected State

Focusing on the details, I also designed different states for unselected, hovering, and selected cards. By utilizing different strokes colors of 1 px, admins are able to enjoy a seamless experience.

Admins also have the ability to add new locations and edit existing locations. Because of this, I also designed interactive modals with error states.

Adding New Location

Error State

FINAL PRODUCT

An all-in-one Locations page to making it easy and efficient for admins.

01. Monitor active rides with an interactive map and searchable list.

Admins can now track rides throughout the day by viewing their actual map locations. They can also quickly search for specific rides, providing them with all the necessary details for verification purposes.

02. Update and add new locations with new interactive modals.

Instead of tracking locations with an Excel sheet, admins can now reference ride locations directly on the map interface. Additionally, they can easily add new pinned locations to the map for better organization and management.