Researchers at Colombia's UNAD co-designed a collaborative-cartography mobile app with 30 people with sensorial and physical disabilities in Ibagué, letting them map and share accessible locations across the city in a peer-reviewed study.
30
Co-design participants with disabilities (2018–2020)
Details
Promoter
Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia (UNAD) — Disability, Affect and Cognition Research Group
Between 2018 and 2020, UNAD's Disability, Affect and Cognition Research Group ran a participatory study in Ibagué, Colombia, directly involving 30 people with sensorial and physical disabilities in co-designing a mobile collaborative-mapping app, with participants themselves identifying and mapping accessible and inaccessible locations across the city.
Results
The study was published as a peer-reviewed article (Zenodo, 2020) and a Springer book chapter (2021), analysing results through accessibility, the social dimension of the city, and 'resignification' of urban space by disabled residents; no public evidence was found that the app was maintained or opened to the wider population after the study concluded.
Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
university researchers, psychology students, disabled co-researchers
Conditions for success
directly involving disabled residents as co-designers and mappers rather than as study subjects
Commonly funded by
National / regional programmes
Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.
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Data sources
Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.
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