Vivere Gaeta

Context

I live in Gaeta, a town where most of the economy turns on tourism. In summer it fills with visitors; in winter it empties, there is little to do, and the few events there are go unnoticed. I wanted to build something for the town’s own social fabric: a place to report what is broken, to talk about the town, to bring people together. In the summer of 2026 that was Gaeta Partecipa, a civic app: citizens put a pin on a map to report a broken streetlight, upvoted each other’s reports, voted in polls.

Contents ↑

Problem

The people I interviewed about Gaeta Partecipa lost interest quickly. What came up in those conversations instead was the guest who arrives at the B&B knowing nothing about the town: what it is, what to do in the evening, what to eat and where. They stay a week or two, go to the beach, eat out, and then run out of ideas. I saw it at a bakery in the old town: a tourist asked whether this was old Gaeta, was told yes, and asked “so where do I go, what do I see?” The historic centre was all around them, and nothing told them how to explore it.

And many of these visitors come from abroad: they speak English, German, French, Swedish, and little or no Italian. Whatever the town tells them, it has to tell them in their language.

Contents ↑

Exploration

The first question was where to stand among what already exists. Google Maps takes you somewhere. The review sites tell you whether a restaurant is good. The cultural sites explain the monuments, and they fail in three ways: content you cannot see, a map buried under pins, a door closed by a disclaimer and an app to install. None of them answers the tourist’s question. I did not want to replace those services. I wanted to hook into them and take the gap between them: not what Gaeta is, but how to live it. That is what the name promises.

Two shapes were drawn for the map. In the first design pass it was one page among others, an index of what has a place, with the cards as the body of the site. In the second it sits under everything, and every page opens over it: a map is the one language every visitor already speaks, and it makes exploring physical. The second won, late, and reversed the pass.

The interviews also found two people, and they fit together. The tourist lives the town by walking through it, and wants to know what to do next. The Gaetano who loves the town already knows: one its history, one where to eat well, one the paths to walk. Each has what the other lacks, and nobody was bringing them together.

Contents ↑

Solution

The app changed its question, from “help fix what is broken” to “this is my town, here is what we are”. Each choice answers one of the three failures. The map is the ground of every page, so whatever you read has a place under it. One card is open at a time, so the map never disappears under its pins. No account and nothing to install, so something opens in the first three seconds. The price is a card interface kept minimal, because the map already does the work of orientation.

The map moves to show what each page is about. Eight kinds of card share one core: text, images, a place on the map, a translation. Tours answer the question from the bakery: a route followed one stop at a time, each leg handed to Google Maps. It is also where the town’s memory is kept: the traditions that only the old people can still tell.

The tourist is drawn in by the map; the Gaetano by the invitation to write on what they love: history, food, the paths. Nobody signs up: “Collabora con noi” files a request, and I approve it person by person. The credits page states the rule: “nessuna presenza è acquistata”, no place on the map is bought.

Contents ↑

Build

Two personas, two surfaces. The reading side is built for the phone: the map full-bleed, a sheet at the bottom to drag up into a list or push down to explore, big touch targets, one hand. The editorial side is built for the desktop: the editor with its sections for content, images, map and publication, keyboard throughout, a wide screen to write on. The same app, with two centres of gravity.

The palette came from the town: three were drawn, and “Pietra e mare” won, warm paper and a single deep Tyrrhenian accent. Type was decided by weight: of three systems drawn on the same card, one sans family at 34 KB won, because the primary reader is on a phone.

Colour and type live in tokens and nowhere else, and every pair was checked for contrast before anything was built on it. One font file, served from the site’s own origin. One v-html in the whole front end and one sanitiser on the server, because the safety argument depends on there being exactly one of each. Accessibility is a gate: WCAG 2.1 AA on the whole app, checked by axe against the production build on every push. A new card type costs a morning.

Measured: ink 13.8:1 · accent 6.8:1 · field outline 3.5:1 · font 34 KB · 699 tests · 8 card types

Contents ↑

Result

Online at viveregaeta.it since November 2026: no account, nothing to install, and the map opens on the first screen. A reader can explore eight kinds of card by points on the map or by lists, follow a tour one stop at a time, and read a card in translation, English first.

The gates were measured on the live site: zero axe violations on 13 pages at 390 and 1280, text contrast never under 5.5:1, one 34 KB font.

What it cannot show yet is the answer to its own question: whether a tourist with two weeks in Gaeta finds here what to do next. That waits for the first cards written by the collaborators, and for the first visitors.

Contents ↑