There are almost 200,000 people with disabilities living in Armenia who are not able to fully take part in the developments in the country or its civic life.
Varduhi Aramyan, an active and engaged citizen of Armenia, realized that one of the reasons behind this was the huge information gap on accessibility-friendly locations and available services. At the same time, Varduhi found that there was a huge number of requests on social media from people looking for information on whether their local theatre, cinema, or cafés (for example) are adapted for disabled access, what venues are least accessible for wheelchair users, and where traffic lights also have sound signals installed.
Seeing a window of opportunity, Varduhi came up with a technological solution to this information gap: an online mapping tool.
The mobile app which is accessible for Android phone users can be downloaded from Google Play, it’s free. THe app provides up-to-date information on locations and services with disabled access, specifying the level of adaptation and accessibility for each facility or venue. The platform comprises of an interactive map, which incorporates both crowdsourced information and information uploaded by the admin. The user-generated, crowdsourced information will be possible to update on the website through mobile and web tools.
Through the platform, people with disabilities and special needs are also be able to rate venues based on their levels of accessibility, and share this information with other users. Additionally, this map has the potential for an added functionality in the use of certain filters that allow the needs of different segments of users to be considered; not only people with disabilities, but also for parents with children and pushchairs, roller skates, non-smokers and more.
Your feedback is very important for us, so once you have downloaded the app from here, let us know what you think, what kind of user journey you had with the tool and what would like to add.
iOS version coming soon! Follow the updates here.