App Design
Pathly helps riders with temporary or situational mobility constraints plan and complete transit trips with greater confidence.
Designed for Montréal’s fragmented transit information ecosystem, Pathly shifts route planning from “what is fastest?” to “what is manageable for me today?” through personalized routing, real-time accessibility updates, and haptic alerts.
Context
Mobile App Design
Transit Accessibility
User-Centered Design
Methods
Problem Framing
Secondary Research
Journey mapping
Prototyping
Timeline
January - March 2026
Role
Product Design
UX Research
Concept development
The problem
Information is fragmented across platforms and station updates.
In Montréal, accessibility and disruption information is often spread across multiple platforms, service alerts, and route-planning tools. For riders with temporary or changing mobility needs, this makes it difficult to know whether a trip is manageable before leaving, and even harder to adjust when conditions change mid-route.
A route may appear possible on paper but become difficult in practice because of elevator outages, construction detours or winter conditions.
Reframing the problem
From fixed accessibility to situational mobility
Most transit apps ask:
“Is this route accessible?”
Pathly asks:
“Is this route manageable for me today?”
Design Opportunity
Design for the moment when mobility needs changes.
Helping riders understand whether a route is manageable before they leave and adjust with confidence when conditions change during the trip.
To understand where Pathly could support riders most, I mapped the journey from planning to completing a transit trip. This helped identify where uncertainty appears, when confidence drops, and where real-time guidance could make the experience more manageable.
Core Experience
Pathly supports riders across four key moments
Personalize mobility profile
Set temporary conditions such as stroller use, fatigue, injury, or low-energy mode.
Plan and adapt routes
Compare routes based on effort, accessibility status, and live disruptions.
Share & verify reports
Report barriers and confirm updates from others to improve trust in real-time information.
Haptic Notifications
Get timely phone/watch alerts and haptic guidance when route conditions change.
Features
Personalize mobility needs
Mobility needs are not always permanent. A rider may need extra support because of a stroller, groceries, fatigue, injury, or winter conditions.
Design decision:
The profile is designed as a temporary preference layer, not a fixed identity label. Users can adjust their current condition so route recommendations respond to what they can manage.
Features
Adaptive route planning
Fastest route is not always the best route for someone with mobility constraints.
Design decision:
Pathly compares routes using effort, reliability, and accessibility status so users can choose the route that feels most realistic.
Features
Make temporary barriers reliable and trustworthy
User-submitted reports can be useful, but they can also become outdated or unreliable.
Design decision:
The verification and time-sensitive visibility is added so that the reports stay useful when other riders confirm them, and they fade when they are no longer supported.
Features
Support riders without constant phone checking
Users may not be able to constantly check their phone, especially while carrying items, pushing a stroller, navigating crowds, or transferring.
Design decision:
Haptics feedbacks and smart watch alerts are explored as a low-attention layer for critical trip updates.
Key Iterations
The concept expanded from selecting a route to supporting riders before and during the trip.
Reports became time-sensitive and community-confirmed to reduce unreliable information.
Watch and haptic alerts were added for moments when checking a phone is difficult.
Final Prototype
A connected experience for planning, adjusting, and traveling with confidence
Next steps
Test the prototype with riders using strollers, temporary injuries, heavy bags, or low-energy conditions.
Refine report verification and expiration rules
Test different haptic patterns for urgency, rerouting, and disruption alerts
Explore how official transit data and community reports could be clearly separated
What I learned
This project helped me understand accessibility as a changing, context-dependent experience rather than a fixed label. The biggest design shift was moving from “How can we show accessible routes?” to “How can we help riders decide what is manageable for them today?”