Crowdsourced Accessibility

The practice of collecting accessibility information about physical or digital environments through contributions from large numbers of people, rather than relying solely on professional auditors. In the physical accessibility context, crowdsourcing approaches include virtual auditing (reviewing streetscape imagery remotely), field auditing (visiting locations in person to report barriers), and field sensing (using smartphone sensors to automatically detect surface conditions). Crowdsourced accessibility data can be used to build accessibility maps, improve navigation services, and inform urban planning decisions at a fraction of the cost of professional audits.