Beyond Navigation: Enabling Inclusive Urban Exploration

This paper presents MAP-ABLE (Mapping Accessibility for Better Location Exploration), a project we are developing to support universal map-based geographical exploration. MAP-ABLE aims to develop a web-based platform that enables people with motor, visual, and hearing disabilities to search for accessible places and services using natural language and voice queries, define personal accessibility profiles that persist across sessions, and navigate maps using non-visual modalities. We describe the motivations of this project, how it differs from existing tools, and the design choices we are making.