Bellidea
A “smart” persuasive smartphone app, promoting bicycle, walking, and public transport instead of car use, that was co-designed by the City of Bellinzona with experts and voluntary citizens. Through the app, all trips could be automatically monitored. Every week the app verified the total trips generated by each user and assigned points based on the travel time made with sustainable means of transport. By accumulating a sufficient number of points, Bellidea users received small prizes offered by the City.
Domain: Passenger transport
Type of initiative: Information, communication, awareness raising and capacity building
Main goals:
- Decarbonization
- Increasing transport safety
- Other (reducing vehicle traffic, reducing the environmental impact of urban mobility)
Target practice: Commuting
Period: 2017-2018
Lead organizations: City of Bellinzona – Municipality
Type of funding institutions: Municipality, other: international public authority (EU)
Participatory process: Individual volunteers living in the region were invited to participate in workshops to co-design the content and functionality of the app, together with researchers (SUPSI), municipal officials, and local NGOs (PRO VELO).
Overall, bi-monthly co-designing workshops were held over the course of a year, involving about 15 ‘core participants’ each.
During the initial workshops, existing persuasive apps were tested and discussed. Subsequently, the key features of the app to be included, together with the rules underlying them, were identified by working on paper prototypes of the app (wireframes). The final meetings were designed as test-beds for the app prototype, while professional software developers translated the paper proposals into pieces of software code.