Designing Sustainable Mobility for People at Risk of Social Isolation: Two Cultural Perspectives from Singapore and France

In both Singapore and France, the proliferation of technology in mobility services induces a risk for non-tech savvy users to be left behind. This may create barriers to mobility and contribute to social isolation. This paper proposes to use a mix of design methods considering specific user problems. In Singapore, after shadowing and interviews with people with reduced mobilities, a persona was drafted, and two key needs for travelling were highlighted: the role of time and the reliance on other people. In France, personas were defined for non-tech savvy users during a design workshop. A new mobility service was created to answer their needs. Further work will be on (i) feeding design workshops with the identification of personas, based on interviews with persons with reduced mobility and (ii) comparing personas in Singapore and France and investigating how design actions can be conducted and evaluated in two different socio-cultural contexts.