De la smart city a la smart human city. Inclusión digital en aplicaciones

Resumen

The current thesis presents research titled “From a Smart City to a Smart Human City: Digital inclusion in applications”. The first section presents a theoretical study which gathers the epistemological and conceptual foundations of the topic and identifies the elements to be examined as a result of the outcomes of this study. The second part constitutes the empirical study in which the methods and research design carried out are presented, together with the instruments used, the analysis and the results. The motive that inspired the present study to be conducted originates from my own experience as a professional in Therapeutic Pedagogy. This experience has enabled me to identify the great needs for inclusion required by sectors of the population, alongside functional diversity and the architectural, physical and technological barriers which can be found in the prevailing city model. Currently, the new concept of cities is one of Smart cities, whose philosophy is defined by a considerable improvement in the quality of life of the city that is intimately related with technology. The Commission of Digital Cities and of the Knowledge of CGLU (2012) defines an intelligent city as that in which a better quality of life and a wise management of natural resources are achieved through investment in infrastructure and a sustainable economic development in society. With all of this being overseen through the actions of a participatory government. During the last decades, the Internet has assumed a role at a social level, being used by the majority of the population to exchange information, and to search and compare data as a means of entertainment and leisure, etc. Although the Internet has had extraordinary success as an omnipresent and universal means of communication, there remain a number of aspects yet to be satisfactorily resolved. As has been exposed by Domingue (2011), it is necessary to advance with new architectures that can satisfy both research and society. New challenges and opportunities are needed for the digital society. Information and communication technologies have had an immeasurable emergence in current society, promoting communication in both work and leisure, in the same way as facilitating information by providing an integrative environment for autonomous development of the user. Mobile devices have to a great extent substituted the use of the Internet in computers. The portability and ergonomics of these appliances provide the user with a key unlocking access to all types of fields: leisure, communication, information, work, etc. It is these technologies that have marked the way in which society interacts, moves and develops. Hundreds of mobile applications have emerged in the last years with the aim of facilitating the degree to which we develop as citizens. These small tools are used to open the doors to a new digital era and digitally connect individuals to each other. From this revolutionary axis through which our form of living in society has changed, a prevailing need to facilitate access and use both by and for the entire population emerges. This should be independent of the individual limitations of all members of the population: elderly individuals without knowledge of TIC; groups without resources; people with physical, intellectual and sensory impairments. To this end, while bearing in mind the swift advances of science, the digital divide continues to be an increasingly powerful segregating factor, leaving a large sector lagging behind for various reasons. In the posing of this problem we are led to investigate the extent to which these cities are accessible to the entire population. Making these cities accessible is a challenge and an obligation for all of society. Accessibility is a crucial factor in getting to this point. As we will see later, accessibility is a question of right and not to be discussed purely as a mere trend of recent years. Alonso (2007) defines it as the “possibility of a person arriving to where they are required to go or of achieving that which they desire (…) in the context of incapacity, the term acquires an authoritative nuance in the reference to one’s rights” (p. 16). As is well explained by Alonso, this process of removing barriers calls for fairly complex interventions and on many occasions involves a high cost being directed only to a small percentage of the population. To this end, the scarcity of studies relating to accessibility of the new city model emerging in recent years, Smart cities, and the social demand itself of including functionally diverse groups to take an active part in the society in which they find themselves, make the present study necessary. All of the above make it necessary for the agents involved in development to tackle the themes of adaptation for the improvement of the technological infrastructure and to follow accessible and usable patterns to give greater access, through both greater quality and improved functionality, to its users. WCAG could be considered as the precursor in terms of technological accessibility, focusing its projects on web sites. Extrapolating accessibility and usability to novel mobile applications, which are so essential in this day and age, a strong collaboration between developers will be necessary. Always taking account of compatibility with the levels of accessibility brought by new mobile operating systems. For this reason the first objective of the present thesis was the creation of a categorical system that enables the degree of accessibility and usability permitted by mobile applications to be assessed. At the same time it seeks to guide the developers of these devices with regards to what they should influence, locating gaps in accessibility and eradicating digital inequality. It is here where the operating systems have taken the lead, introducing into the interfaces of their products a wide variety of tools that make device-user interaction possible, something which was previously lacking. In addition, they have allowed these tools to be extrapolated and made compatible with revolutionary mobile applications. At the beginning of this research, we posed the following question: Do intelligent applications integrate accessible and usable elements into their interface, which allow users with visual incapacities to be included in the context of a Smart City? The response to this question drives each one of the chapters that make up the present research. In the first chapter, a scientometric study conducted on the fundamental terms on which the present study is based is presented, in order to identify the consequences of these in the last years. In the second, we analyse the concept of a Smart City, considering all that this represents, its roots, its scope and its field of action. The third chapter focuses attention on diversity, centring specifically on visual deficiencies and finishing by considering specific mobile applications within this sector of the population. In the fourth chapter we focus on the most specific part of this research, Tiflotechnology and the newly coined concept of the Personal Accessibility Environment. This chapter also addresses the accessibility measures currently being incorporated into the accessibility layer of predominant operating systems and conducts a comparative analysis between them. The fifth chapter is based purely on applications and selection criteria for applications in the Smart City, alongside the establishment of a set of apps in environments which are considered to be potentially relevant for the Smart City. Finally, in finalising the theoretical framework, we arrive to chapter 6 which is based on a background of research that influences the present research in an indirect manner. This includes forming the basis of the system of indicators, as is the case for WCAG 2.1, or in the case of the European Directive 2016/2102, which directs the new outlooks considered with regards to digital accessibility and usability. The empirical part of the research is found in chapters seven, eight, nine, ten and eleven. Chapter seven reports on study development: method, population, sample, instruments, procedures, materials, etc. Further, the process of instrument validation is detailed and the system of indicators developed in the research is described. In the following chapter, number eight, the statistical analysis and results are fully addressed, with these being obtained through meticulous handling of the statistical program SPSS version 25.0. Chapter nine is centred on the conclusions drawn from the analysis, the results obtained in the personal environment of accessibility and a series of experiences and open interviews conducted with individuals suffering from visual deficiencies about accessibility and usability of TIC in today’s cities. Once the study conducted with regards to variables pertaining to the operating system, visual deficiency, mobile application and the personal environment of accessibility was finalised, it was considered convenient to dedicate chapter ten to a summary of all of the aforementioned aspects in each one of the applications of the sample, rating them according to accessibility and usability. The last chapter, which is dedicated to the conclusions, provides an accessibility guide produced using the results of the prior analysis. This serves as a checklist directed towards developers, with the intention of breaking down the access barriers currently faced by sub-populations affected by visual deficiencies when the city framework is applied.