Walking under a Different Sky: Urban Colored Routes for Creative Engagement and Pleasure

This work presents a study inviting new reflections on our daily walking experiences as mediated by modern GIS-based route-mapping software tools, which has culminated into ColorPath: an app that allows walkers to follow creative urban paths computed on the basis of their walking preferences and expressed under the form of a color. In particular, users may indicate their preference to follow a route as obtained as an urban mix of: pleasurable landscapes (blue), historical buildings and places (red), and parks and gardens (green). ColorPath computes a corresponding path to be followed. Drawing on a new trend that explores the relations between GIS-enabled computerized navigations and sociocultural practices, ColorPath has been built on top of OpenTripPlanner (OTP) and exploits OpenStreetMap (OSM) data. Studies of 10 people's use of ColorPath propose insights on how walkers reflect on the differences (pros and drawbacks) between "colored" routes and traditional shortest paths computed by routinary route recommendation algorithms.