Walking under a Different Sky: Urban Colored Routes for Creative Engagement and Pleasure

ABSTRACT

This work presents a study inviting new reflections on our daily walking experiences as mediated by modern GIS-based route-mapping software tools, which has culminated into ColorPath: an app that allows walkers to follow creative urban paths computed on the basis of their walking preferences and expressed under the form of a color. In particular, users may indicate their preference to follow a route as obtained as an urban mix of: pleasurable landscapes (blue), historical buildings and places (red), and parks and gardens (green). ColorPath computes a corresponding path to be followed. Drawing on a new trend that explores the relations between GIS-enabled computerized navigations and sociocultural practices, ColorPath has been built on top of OpenTripPlanner (OTP) and exploits OpenStreetMap (OSM) data. Studies of 10 people’s use of ColorPath propose insights on how walkers reflect on the differences (pros and drawbacks) between “colored” routes and traditional shortest paths computed by routinary route recommendation algorithms.

Acknowledgments

We thank all the participants involved in this study.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Silvia Mirri

Silvia Mirri is assistant professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Bologna (Italy). She was also a Visiting Researcher at the University of Toronto (Ontario, Canada). Her research interests focus on multimedia and Web applications and technologies, Human Computer Interaction, and accessibility.

Catia Prandi

Catia Prandi is a research fellow at the Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, at the University of Madeira (Portugal). She received a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2016. She was Visiting Researcher at the KMI at the UK Open University. Her research interests focus on Human Computer Interaction, Gamification, and Crowdsourcing to improve the user's experience in urban mobility contexts.

Marco Roccetti

Marco Roccetti is full professor of Computer Science at the University of Bologna (Italy). He was also a Visiting Scholar at the University of California Los Angeles and a Visiting Scientist at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley. His research interests focus on digital multimedia applications and allied technologies.

Paola Salomoni

Paola Salomoni is associate professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Bologna (Italy). She is currently serving as Vice Rector to Digital Technologies at the University of Bologna. Her research interests focus on multimedia and Web applications and technologies, Human Computer Interaction, and accessibility.