Walks in the City: Improving the wellbeing of senior citizens and their neighbourhoods
Team: EUROB Creative SLNE
The experiment challenged senior citizens to go for a walk through their city; during the walk, they tag their favourite places along the way, create and recommend routes or invite other citizens to join them for the walk. Through the use of gamification (where the senior citizens win points through activities), the experiment addressed the wellbeing of senior citizens in Santander while revitalising and improving the neighbourhoods they walk through.
The Team
“Walks in the city keeps seniors healthy and active.”
Process
1. Introductory meeting with participants: The seniors’ association Eulalio Ferrer organized an introductory meeting about the experiment, shared information and encouraged potential participants to join.
4. Iterating prototype: The initial prototype of WalkInCT was refined and iterated based on the feedback obtained from the users. The new version of WalkInCT App was installed and tested, for further iterations.
Experiment outcome
Activity data monitoring and sharing: Users are able to monitor their health data, such as weight, blood pressure, sugar level and heart rate. They are also able to monitor their daily activities such as: number of steps and kilo meters walked, calories consumed and hours of sleep. Users also have the option to share their health data with medical professionals or family members.
Adding new routes and tagging places: Users can create walking routes around their neighbourhood, tag their favorite places and receive points for being active.
City information and alerts: Users receive information about the latest events in the city and other information of their interest.
Lessons learned
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- WalkInCT had a positive impact on users’ lives
Most users who participated in the experiment reported that they became more active through the use of the app. - Focusing on ‘younger’ senior citizens
We discovered that younger senior citizens were more active in using the mobile app and more familiar with new technologies. This made us realise that WalkInCT is especially suitable for people between 50-70 years of age.
- WalkInCT had a positive impact on users’ lives
What happened & what's next?
- The WalkInCT experiment’s learnings were integrated into InCity Together app, which was publicly launched on Google Play in July 2017 and currently has 10,000 downloads.