SCC-IRG Track 2: CityGuide: Seamless and Inclusive Location-Based Services for Communities

在我们的社区中，残疾人往往很难实现和维持独立的高质量生活。造成这一问题的一个重要原因是在独立访问社区内的地点和服务方面存在挑战。尽管支持全球定位系统（GPS）的应用取得了进步，但在许多日常生活场景中，缺乏适当的基于位置的服务给残疾人的行动和访问带来了挑战。该项目的长期愿景是设计、部署、评估和完善一个名为CityGuide的包容性社区系统（通过智能手机应用程序访问），该系统为残疾人（和一般人群）提供各种辅助的基于位置的服务（ALBSs），补充基于卫星的GPS系统。CityGuide将提供一个核心的寻路应用程序作为一项服务，具有探索和导航的双重功能。在这个核心寻路服务的基础上，可以构建许多其他应用程序；本项目范围内的一些具体应用有：紧急疏散、远程援助和过境。该项目试图使用一种通用的技术基础设施，同时服务于各种残疾人士的辅助寻路需求。利用技术改善社区可达性的最高目标自然需要综合的社会技术研究贡献，从而在多个方面推进知识。从技术设计的角度来看，该项目推进了关于提供无缝和可扩展的室内和室外位置服务的知识。从信息设计的角度来看，该项目为各种基于位置的应用程序提供了关于上下文适当的线索和内容的知识。从人机交互的角度来看，该项目推进了将通用设计原则应用于访问基于位置的服务方面的知识。从经济分析的角度来看，该项目促进了对范围经济和规模经济对中小型社区无障碍技术的可行性和可持续性的影响的认识。该项目的预期社会影响包括：开发寻路技术（以及相关的技术转让），为残疾人和一般人群提供一种有用的工具，以提高他们的独立性，从而提高生活质量；并为其他类似的未来工作（除寻路之外）创建一个模式，以解决在如何获得各种基于社区的服务方面需要更大的包容性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Persons with disabilities in our communities often find it difficult to achieve and maintain an independent and high quality of life. A significant cause of this issue is the challenge in independently accessing locations and services within the community. In spite of advances in global positioning system (GPS)-enabled applications, there are many daily-life scenarios where the lack of adequate location-based services presents mobility and access challenges to persons with disabilities. The long-term vision for this project is to design, deploy, evaluate, and refine an inclusive community-wide system (accessed through a smartphone app) called CityGuide that provides various auxiliary location-based services (ALBSs) for people with disabilities (and the general population), complementing satellite-based GPS systems. CityGuide will provide a core wayfinding application as a service with the twin capabilities of exploration and navigation. Building upon this core wayfinding service, numerous other applications can be built; some specific applications of interest within the scope of the project are: emergency evacuation, remote assistance, and transit. This project attempts to use a common technology infrastructure to simultaneously serve the auxiliary wayfinding needs of people with a broad range of disabilities. The top-level goal of using technology to improve accessibility in communities naturally requires integrative socio-technical research contributions that advances knowledge on multiple fronts. From a technology design perspective, the project advances knowledge about providing seamless and scalable indoor and outdoor location-based services. From an information design perspective, the project advances knowledge about contextually appropriate cues and content for a variety of location-based applications. From a human-computer interaction perspective, the project advances knowledge in applying universal design principles towards accessing location-based services. From an economic analysis perspective, the project advances knowledge about the impact of economies of scope and scale in the feasibility and sustainability of accessibility technologies in small to medium-sized communities. Expected societal impacts from the project include the development of wayfinding technologies (and associated tech transfer) that provides people with disabilities and also the general population a useful tool to increase their independence, and thus, quality of life; and creation of a model for other similar future efforts (beyond wayfinding) to address the need for greater inclusivity in how various community-based services are accessed.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.