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Mobilair citizens’ engagement | Co-creating a Green Urban Mobility App: A Student-Led Design Sprint

The co-creation began with the conception of a basic questionnaire, comprised of around 40 questions, focused on 4 main sections: 

  1. Demographics  
  2. Knowledge and awareness of air quality 
  3. Urban travel habits 
  4. Needs and preferences regarding the application 

Our first and main group consisted of University students from the Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development Postgraduate Program in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, taking the course Atmospheric Pollution. The individuals were introduced to the project MoblilAir through a 20-minute presentation where they had the opportunity to ask clarifying questions.  At the end they were asked to fill out the questionnaire in a weeks’ time and be prepared to give us their feedback. 

The next session was online and was focused on their questionnaire answers. Their feedback was given through tools like Mentimeter where they were encouraged to empathise with the users and look into their possible needs, imagining a persona with questions like “What other needs can you think of?” and “How might the user become more engaged?”. Participants came to valuable conclusions on various aspects, such as the extent and type of personal information users may disclose, the types of environmental and mobility information valuable to users, and everyday attributes necessary for the new app to serve as a “one-stop shop” for citizens’ mobility. This was done as a warm-up for the next steps concerning the envisioning of a green urban mobility application. 

Each student was asked to prepare their own vision focused on what components could a green mobility app be made of according to our previous sessions and AI. While they were also encouraged to investigate the business point of view. 

In the last step and after they received feedback on their individual work, they were prompted to cooperate. The green mobility app under construction was separated into three sections: 

  • Section 1: Basic Navigation, Mobility & Infrastructure 
  • Section 2: Environmental, Social & Economic Dimension 
  • Section 3: Accessibility, Education & Connectivity 

Each individual selected a section and thus three groups of approximately 5 people were created. The objective was to unify their previous visions and develop new ideas to create their ideal green urban mobility app. During a 2-hour session, the groups presented their work and discussed the challenges that may be encountered in the creation of such an app. In addition to operational and computational costs, they also question their choices of app features and how they would actually benefit the user and maintain their engagement with the app.