Accessibility in Smart Cities
As a continuation of last year's exciting project where we worked with Norwegian municipalities to introduce accessibility to the Smart Cities concept, this year we have received funding from the Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Families BufDir to continue working on the next step.
During the first part of the project, it became clear that municipalities working with the Smart Cities concept need concrete tools for inclusion. Therefore, the current project has focused on producing personas and educational materials that the municipalities can use to implement accessibility in their processes.
Because of the pandemic,it has not been possible to work as practically and close to the municipalities as we had hoped, but I still think that we have come a long way with the material, says Saja Andersson, accessibility expert at Funka's Oslo office.
As we have been using mainly digital channels in the research, we have been able to reach more people. The goal of the project is to develop materials and methods to include users in different stages of the design process. That way we can get the concept of accessibility built into the projects from the start, which saves both time and money.
Based on methods for UX and service design, we have focused on project management, evaluation, testing, requirements, problem solving and conceptual work. With solid support material, we hope that more municipalities can include an inclusive perspective in their Smart Cities projects.
Funding: The Directorate for Children, Youth and Families BufDir
Period: 2020
Budget: 500 000 NOK