Hybrid Mobile App prototype for Human Computer Interaction 4
Given the well known environmental issues related to pollution and emissions, one goal of the project is to find a way to reduce it and raise awareness of the environmental impact people’s daily transport habits have. To do this, the application takes advantage of two trends: social sharing and healthy activity. Therefore, Carry Me is a mobile application which aims at promoting more sustainable means of transport (such as walking, cycling) to reduce road congestion and carbon footprint, educating the users at the same time of the environmental impact of their daily decisions. Additionally, its goals include increasing the level of activity of its users and engaging them in a “competition” with their friends.
The way the application is trying to solve the transport problem is through combining five main ideas in one application:
- carbon emissions
- weather
- health: calories and tips
- routes
- gamification
Firstly, the application uses weather services to present the user with a forecast for the day. Based on this, the app recommends a type of transport i.e. encourage walking or cycling on a sunny day or public transport or car sharing in case of bad weather (if the user is not willing to walk through the rain). This tries to motivate users to choose more sustainable means of transport, especially when the weather allows it.
Secondly, given the current trends of checking the amount of calories one eats and burns, integrating calories aims to motivate people to take a walk rather than drive. Additionally, users are educated of the benefits of choosing specific means of transport, to encourage them to make environmentally-wiser and healthier choices.
Then, the application shows the user carbon footprint estimates for the available transport options which tries to raise awareness of the environmental impact of people’s daily transport decisions and determine them to reduce it.
Related to this is the gamification part of the app, in which users get more points the lower the footprint value is, meaning that they are rewarded for taking wiser transport decisions. This not only aims to keep users engaged, but also adds the social aspect to the app, by allowing them to compete against their friends.
Finally, the app integrates with Google Maps to show users the available transport modes and routes.
All these functionalities are present in the application in order to provide users easy access to all the information they need for making a wise transport decision.