Yesterday, I went to the Bicycle Film Festival and saw a documentary called “Best Day Ever.” It follows people with spinal cord injuries and a community in Vermont that’s building adaptive mountain biking trails designed to work for everyone.
One moment in the film really stuck with me:
An adaptive mountain biker invites a trail builder to actually ride with him in an adaptive bike. Even though the trail builder has been building MTB trails for 10 years, that was the first time he’d been in an adaptive bike. And because of that hands-on experience, he realized how he could start to make all of his trails more accessible, with very little additional effort.
It was a powerful reminder that as designers, we need to put ourselves in our users’ shoes. There’s really no substitute for trying something firsthand.