Combining Web Squared and Serious Games for Crossroad Accessibility

The magic trick of the serious game approach lies in the fact that a positive aim can be reached by attracting people in an entertaining task. Yet, the real impact of this technology on our society will happen when it will be utilized to gather the contribution of thousands, maybe millions, of player all around the world to address crucial and unsolved problems. To this aim, we adopt the web squared paradigm, combining serious games with crowd-sourcing and automatic data gathering from smartphones’ sensors. We show how this combination can create a major force able to tackle serious challenges considered too complex for single users and even for computers. As a proof-of-concept, we discuss a solution able to automatically generate a Google Maps-like service also including information about traffic lights with audible signals. As a final result, our solution improves crossroad accessibility for blind pedestrians by exploiting the latest web squared and serious game technology.