Design, prototyping and evaluation of SIMpliCity: an NFC system for the mobility of citizens

SIMpliCity is an application developed in the RFID Lab of CATTID (Centre for the Applications of Television and for Distance Learning Techniques), research centre of Rome University “La Sapienza”, that helps tourists in their sightseeing around the city and offers value-added services for both tourists and local citizens, thanks to the use of mobile phones equipped with Near Field Communication technology. This paper describes the application’s architecture, together with the first usability test conducted on it. We exploited users’ suggestions arising from a deeper analysis of the results in order to redesign the application, increasing its performance, moreover obtaining more flexibility and reliability. The result is the upgraded version of the system (we called it SIMpliCity 2.0), described in par. 4. This upgraded version has been tested too with real users. The results of this second test are reported and analyzed in par. 5.