Summary
The Community Observatory for Territorial Information Management and Control project situates older people as not only the final beneficiaries of universal accessibility, but as active agents in the processes of adapting the environment to respond to their mobility and accessibility challenges. To this end, the Observatory has focused on co-designing, in conjunction with older people, a crowdsourcing platform called DIMEapp, for reporting environmental problems affecting mobility and accessibility. In addition to enabling users to register environmental access barriers they encounter linked to their mobility issues, the app allows users to see an overview of the municipal environment as it relates to accessibility and mobility, and to streamline the prioritisation, case management and monitoring of accessibility issues by local governments and the community. In doing so, the device aims at increasing the awareness and empowerment of older people in relation to environmental issues that affect them. The project was structured in various phases, which enable the full engagement of the 42 older people involved from mapping out their urban environment to designing the app, to testing it in collaboration with other stakeholders in their living environment. Older people gained practical skills to relay and manage the resolution of issues affecting their environmental well-being, and they also built up their digital skills.
Planning and Implementation
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What was the challenge you were trying to address?
The overall challenge was to co-create an effective digital mechanism for older people to report and track resolution of barriers affecting their well-being in an urban environment. The types of issues the device aims to address include problems with pavements, stairways, signalling, transport, lighting, availability and accessibility of toilets, and general safety issues.
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Who were you trying to impact?
Older people in general
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What sectors were you targeting?
Education, Urban development
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Who else was involved?
Government, Academia
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How did older people participate?
Older people were part of the process at multiple or all stages
Lessons learned
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Please describe how collaboration worked in your initiative.
The Gerópolis Center of the University of Valparaiso, Chile, is working in partnership with the health authority of the Municipality of Valparaiso and with older people to create the Community Observatory of Management and Control of Territorial Information. The general objective of the Observatory is to improve the mobility, health and quality of life of older people by addressing barriers in the physical infrastructure of the urban environment. As part of their joint collaboration under the Community Observatory of Management and Control of Territorial Information, older people have been working with the University of Valparaiso and the health authority of the Municipality of Valparaiso to co-design a digital application informed by participatory mapping.
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What was the impact of your initiative on older people, their families, and/or their communities?
No formal evaluation has yet been carried out on the impact of the engagement on older people. However, older people’s reflections have been captured by the project leads. Although older people have less familiarity with digital applications than other age groups, their participation in the design and development of DIMEapp has generated a lot of interest among older people in the possibilities it presents them to successfully influence urban decisions that affect their quality of life. Engaging with this project has also motivated older participants to improve their digital technology skills.
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What issues did you face, and how did you address them?
Some older people were not familiar or comfortable with digital tools. To enable older people’s full engagement with the digital application, digital literacy training was conducted in advance of the focus groups. The idea of conducting digital literacy workshops was suggested by participants aged 75 and over who had little or no experience with mobile applications but who were interested in improving their skills, both to enable them to make use of the application being developed, and also other forms of social media and digital tools.
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What lessons did you learn from implementing this initiative?
(1) One fundamental learning lies in the benefits of directly engaging the older service users in the design and development of the application. It improved the identification of issues and barriers that affect the accessibility of communities for older people; it increased the usability of the application for older people in terms of its interface and functionality; and it encouraged a more age friendly approach to digital technology. (2) It is more beneficial to design interventions for broader audiences as well: Although the application’s main focus is older people and better meeting the needs of this group in the physical environment, it is hoped that the tool will be used by other age groups too, and that they will derive benefits from the improvements that are generated. The aim is to promote a more friendly and accessible city for people of all ages and abilities. (3) Engaging early with municipal department: It increases the uptake and sustainability of the project. The workshops planned to determine the criteria to be used in prioritising the cases reported through the DIME application will include the users of the application (those who participated in the design-stage of the project) and the representatives of the municipal departments with responsibility for the management of the urban environment. Alongside determining the criteria for prioritising cases, the workshops will also establish the procedures and solutions that the municipal government will take to address the different issues identified through the app.
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Do you have any other reflections you would like to share?
Beyond engaging with older people, the project benefited from piloting the app with different groups that interact with older people, including those who work in community organisations, those who provide digital literacy courses, and those who provide local amenities, such as newsagents.