AlmaWhere: A prototype of accessible indoor wayfinding and navigation system

Moving across a University campus (outdoor, among the buildings, and indoor, among classrooms and offices) could represent a barrier for students with disabilities, affecting their independence while they conduct their daily activities. Providing support by means of smart phones thanks to location technologies can be a useful means of integration and inclusion, with the effect of facilitating also tourists, newbies, or freshmen. This is particularly true in those contexts where the universities are hosted in historical buildings in old towns, which is a typical situation in the European countries. This paper presents AlmaWhere, a system based on beacon technology, designed and developed with the aim of equipping students of the University of Bologna with an indoor navigation system, providing them support in finding classes, labs, and libraries, with a specific attention those users with disabilities. The paper describes the main design issues, the system architecture, and technologies we have analyzed in order to design a prototype and two scenarios that involve personas.