Sports Active Wexford

Company Profile

Sports Active Wexford is one of twenty nine local sports partnerships established under the aegis of Sport Ireland. They have offices in Wexford County Council.

The goals and objectives for this public service organisation include:

• Empowering communities
• Enabling inclusion
• Supporting the Sport sector

Problem to be solved

One of the central tenets of Sports Active Wexford’s vision was to encourage people to start to participate in some form of physical activity and to stay physically active across life stages. They are deservedly lauded for their varied and innovative approaches to accomplishing this goal through interagency collaborations and engaging marginalised members of the community as well as those who habitually do not engage in traditional sports activities.

Through their investigations, Sports Active Wexford approached Walton Institute with the idea of utilising Augmented or Virtual Reality as an assistive technology to encourage engagement in physical exercise. The aim for this technology would be to primarily engage people with anxiety or other psychological impairments that would prevent them from visiting areas of interest.

The aims of this project were to:

1. Give people the opportunity to virtually visit a park or scene of natural beauty.
2. Encourage user participation in physical exercise.

How Walton Institute delivered a solution

Walton Institute created a mobile based app that is widely accessible and uses a ‘scaffolding’ methodology based on Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development wherein user familiarity with the environment may reduce anxiety and reticence to visit the location in the real world. Walton Institute adopted a multi-actor approach enlisting project partners such as Coillte, Wexford Mental Health Services and Tintern Trails encompassing professionals as well as service users to ensure that an inclusive and accessible application was developed. This approach was taken from concept design and requirements gathering, design of the User Interface through to development and refinement of the application – which instilled a sense of ownership of the mobile app with the target group.

Walton Institute provided the following features:

• 360 degree video capture of a number of scenic trails across County Wexford.
• Sound editing of videos – to ensure clear and crisp audio overlays to enhance user sense of immersion.
• Stationery ‘Nature Bathing’ videos with sound design accentuated to enrich user relaxation.
• Guide Experience – at target group’s request – recording and editing of Guide videos where a local expert appears onscreen and discusses the flora, fauna and/or cultural heritage of the location.
• Innovative ‘Walk 360’ feature – used for Outdoor settings where a person can walk in their ‘safe space’ and the video shall start and stop according to user’s movement.
• Creation and deployment of the mobile based application.
• Onboarding workshops – throughout the project lifecycle to not only ensure accessibility and correlation of user requirements and aspirations with app features as well as empowering ownership but also to enhance prolonged user adoption of the application.

Impact for the company

Sports Active Wexford received a fully tested – and community approved – accessible mobile app that not only aligned with their vision but also helped to consolidate awareness of their innovative practices across communities in County Wexford but also nationwide and across the European Network of Outdoor Sports (ENOS).

The Nature Walker app has also helped to identify other potential areas that Sports Active Wexford can focus on – with other scenic areas being included and topics such as tourism and heritage being earmarked for inclusion in further iterations of this app.

Additionally, the Nature Walker app won the .ie Digital Town Awards for 2024 in the Digital Community category.

Walton Institute also presented Nature Walker on behalf of this collaboration at:

• DEC conference in SETU in December 2023
• Euro’Meet conference in Lecco, Italy in September 2024
• Beyond Horizons conference in Sport Ireland in October 2024

Company Testimonial

“The Nature Walker App has been an invaluable asset to Sports Active Wexford. Designed with accessibility at its core, this user-centric platform seamlessly bridges the gap between virtual exploration and real-world adventure. Its intuitive design makes it easy for users to discover and engage with points of interest, inspiring them to experience these locations firsthand. The feedback from our stakeholders and service users has been extremely positive, highlighting the app’s effectiveness in fostering engagement and outdoor activity. More than just a digital tool, the Nature Walker App is a brilliant example of collaboration and innovation. We are excited about its future potential and subject to funding, look forward to expanding its reach even further. For now, we are thrilled with the impact it has already made.“

Anna Flynn, Sports Active Wexford