Attention barrier: How we empowered affected citizens to put invisible obstacles in the city on an interactive map
2.3.4 DKK - Spannende Kartographie-Projekte

Attention barrier: How we empowered affected citizens to put invisible obstacles in the city on an interactive map

Trends und Entwicklungen in der Geoinformationsverwaltung
3D-Stadtmodelle, 3D-Visualisierung
Mittwoch, 8. Okt. 2025
15:00 - 15:20 | Europe/Berlin

Conference

INTERGEO Conference | Transparenz 2 (no translation/keine Übersetzung)
German
About
City centers belong to everyone. However, barriers of all kinds make it difficult for some to access their city. The situation is particularly difficult for those who are exposed to invisible barriers: These include neurodivergent people, for example, who cannot tolerate background music in stores; vulnerable people who avoid dark corners and alleyways; visually impaired people who lose their bearings between parked cars and wandering construction sites. In order to confront such barriers and enable a debate about their removal, they must first be made visible. The non-profit media company CORRECTIV in Switzerland and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts have done this with the help of hundreds of affected people who have mapped their personal barriers at pop-up stands or on guided walks through the city center of Lucerne. The data collected as part of the “Attention, Barrier!” project is stored on an interactive platform specially programmed for such citizen research, the CrowdNewsroom, and is located on a constantly evolving map. The invisible barriers recorded there are made visible with the help of augmented reality. Citizens thus learn about barriers in everyday life that they are barely aware of. The mapping also serves the city of Lucerne, which supports the project, as a basis for a citizen dialog.