Design of SmartMoving, an application for pedestrians with reduced mobility

Abstract

The state of sidewalks in Asunción, Paraguay is far from being optimal. There are many problems such as obstructions, necessary repairs, lack of ramps, unevenness of surface, among others. In addition, the Municipality of Asunción does not have automated mechanisms to know the updated status of sidewalks. In this work we propose SmartMoving, a mobile application that collects information on the state of the sidewalks, with the help of citizens, and recommends pedestrian paths with fewer obstacles. The application can be especially useful for people with reduced mobility, as well as for the Municipality of Asunción. This type of application is based on citizen participation, since it receives data from them, and therefore requires a particularly friendly user experience, adapted to users and their daily context. Therefore, the need for a participatory and user-centered design, as a basis for the development of the application. Therefore, in this paper we present the SmartMoving application and the user-centered design process that has been followed for its development, involving users with reduced mobility.