Inspiration
After walking around the city with a friend who has to use stroller for her newborn baby, we realized how inaccessible and inconvenient some walking areas could be. Sometimes there aren't sidewalks where frequent walkable places are, or there aren't ramps to some places or the new ramps lead to a building with set of stairs. We take for granted that the current map apps we are used to are good at showing routes and direction for the able community, but not so much for the people who walk or use wheelchairs.
What it does
RollWork is a mobile app prototype that is meant to show users walkable and unwalkable areas. This could mean constructions, areas where uses report lack of ramps or accessibility or unsafe terrain. The app also features a street suggestion box where users can submit a suggestion on what could be improved or added. This could be suggesting a ramp or sidewalk to be added in certain places. Other users will then be able to view those spots on a map and upvote suggestions they agree needs attention.
However, this app doesn't just help the disabled community but also mothers who use strollers, the elderly who would need sidewalks instead of walking on uneven undeveloped areas, the blind who need sidewalk bumps to indicate when they're at an intersection or even abled people who want to want to voice concerns about community safety like needing extra street lamps for a dimly lit area.
This app is about building awareness and community. With enough attention, people like lobbyist can use this to back up and petition for change. This app would be akin to Change.org and give users a platform to voice their opinion about city accessibility and safety while seeing live what areas are safest to traverse.
How I built it
We first made a wireframe and user flow in Figma (https://www.figma.com/file/UuDSZGulPS1eYFUVc2RA2O/ios?node-id=0%3A1), then took it to Unity to prototype an apk build.
Challenges I ran into
We attempted to make a semi functional iOS app at first, but half way through we realized that we are not as familiar with Swift as we thought. We decided to switch to Unity and aim for an Android prototype that showcases the a main features of this mobile app idea.
Another challenge we ran into is that the idea itself is may be over scoped. In order for this mobile app to work we also need to figure out how to efficiently import maps and navigation. Ideally the data would be crowdsourced from the civilians who experience the walkability of the city. From there, we would want to use that data to suggest the most accessible routes such as routes with ramps or indicate where stairs are.
We also came across the question of how to reach decision makers/call for change. Cities want to fix their problems and (hopefully) address their citizens' complaints, but in order to do that, the problem needs to be identified first. This app can show them what people are advocating for the most or what needs the most attention.
We'll also need to consider how to review and validate user submissions. This could be solved by adding a sign-in feature in which we validate use submissions which require photo attachment. Although we didn't implement those features we hope to at least get the idea across.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of, What I learned, and What's next for RollWork
We are proud that we ran with the idea and worked out the most important features that we think would make this app useful and special. We learned that it is important to spend time on developing our design and work out logics. If we have more time, we would do more research and work on functionalities.
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