Visualizing Urban Accessibility: Investigating Multi-Stakeholder Perspectives through a Map-based Design Probe Study

Inaccessibility maps to support sighted people using visually impaired people’s white cane data

“…Finally, it may be difficult for the current information presented by the system to have a significant influence on the user's route planning and, therefore, the method of presentation should be considered. Our system uses place markers at the coordinates of locations considered to present walking difficulties, but as mentioned, there are multiple methods for accessibility visualization [42]. For visualization, these methods use official datasets provided by municipalities and other sources, but the cost of collecting this information is high.…”

“…In addition, previous methods [42], instead of placing markers at specific map locations as does ours, visualize accessibility by dividing it into levels, or a certain range of levels using heat maps. Through a study comparing other accessibility visualization methods with our methods, more useful information can be presented to the user and could influence their route planning.…”

“…Through a study comparing other accessibility visualization methods with our methods, more useful information can be presented to the user and could influence their route planning. A study by Manaswi et al that evaluated diverse accessibility visualization methods from the perspectives of various stakeholders i.e., caregivers with high relationship values with people with disabilities [42]. They stated that they did not trust data without knowing who created it and that they trusted less granular information, such as information that was visualized in a pinpoint location rather than generalized to a certain range from multiple data sets.…”

“…One of the most representative of these is Accessmap [38], which is a web service provided by three municipalities in the state of Washington, United States; it visualizes the accessibility of 109210 sidewalks and 76561 crosswalks using colors. Several other attempts have been made to communicate accessibility, such as Wheelmap [39,40], which visualizes accessibility for wheelchair users, and Walkscore [41], a walkability index that quantifies density and proximity to areas with good transit facilities In addition to these specific attempts to visualize accessibility, and as selectively detailed below there have been related studies [42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. Manaswi et al conducted a user study involving people with walking disabilities and other stakeholders to determine visualization methods that could be used to represent accessibility in the city [42].…”

“…Several other attempts have been made to communicate accessibility, such as Wheelmap [39,40], which visualizes accessibility for wheelchair users, and Walkscore [41], a walkability index that quantifies density and proximity to areas with good transit facilities In addition to these specific attempts to visualize accessibility, and as selectively detailed below there have been related studies [42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. Manaswi et al conducted a user study involving people with walking disabilities and other stakeholders to determine visualization methods that could be used to represent accessibility in the city [42]. In the experiment participants presented and discussed different types of accessibility map information, including heat maps, points, and lines.…”