we leave you tonight with the story of two Union County teens whose tech savvy is opening doors for people with Mobility challenges the students created an app that rates businesses in and around Westfield on how accessible they are for people who use wheelchairs or Walkers as Raven Santana reports it's helping bring awareness to an often overlooked issue and more inclusivity for those in town pharmacies that's important for us restaurants things of that's where my wife and I love to go dine out not having accessibility information about a business may not sound like a big deal to most people but it can be a frustrating experience for people with disabilities like Steven Daurio who uses a wheelchair to get around Daurio is a former Westfield resident and was an avid cyclist until he suffered a spinal cord injury in a bicycle accident 5 years ago able-bodied people probably don't is the just the sidewalks the streets any irregularity any bumps could cause someone in a manual wheelchair to have issues to get caught to trip possibly to to Tumble to fall you know to the side this is a this is much more stable and that's why I prefer to use it what's challenging is knowing before you go what you're going to expect and what's helpful is knowing from the app what to expect Daurio says figuring out where he and his wheelchair can go has gotten a little bit easier thanks to a new app called access wayfinder designed to inform people about accessibility before visiting a business in Westfield and sometimes you wind up having to go in the commercial or the delivery entrance which isn't as dignified and that's something to consider as well places like Westfield downtown where a lot of the businesses are older and therefore aren't very aren't as ADA Compliant as some of the newer businesses may be which in which are located in businesses that were built after the ADA Compliant Act was passed the app was created by 17-year-old Krishav Singla and developed by 16-year-old Ethan Lung.

Singla says he was inspired by his grandparents who have difficulty getting up and downstairs businesses on the app are rated on a scale of one to five stars and focus on three areas the entrance does it have a wide door and a ramp or no stairs the interior is it spacious with path ways for wheelchair users to get around are there places to sit and parking are there handicap spots nearby a lot of the times a lot of my collection of data from businesses involved either me going into the store or me calling them beforehand and sometimes I would simply just be looking at the store but sometimes I'd also be talking with the store owner about accessibility and how how this store is accessible for people with disabilities and how we could possibly fix this in the future hardest part for us developing the app was probably figuring out how to list all the businesses in a detailed way like making sure when you click the health and services app Mak sure all the health and services come up correctly and it doesn't appear on a different page so making sure everything was detailed and organized correctly while each score is average to give each business a overall accessibility ranking there is also a space for people to make comments to recommend improvements to businesses the users if they notice something they can also put it into the the thing as well so we have um ratings from the users and the business owners as well Patricia and Paul is one of those more than 200 businesses rated on the app actually didn't have to change anything we filled up the form that they asked us to fill out and we got the five stars so all I do is right now is I'm actually more conscious about where the baskets are if I have too many I'll move them around or if I see someone coming in I'll make sure to scoot them just so this way it's a little bit easier for everyone to move around the teens say they have disclaimer on the app to remind folks that they're not trying to punish or criticize any business but hope to encourage other businesses around Westfield to make their spaces more accessible they say their next goal is focusing on how to expand the app to other towns for NJ Spotlight news I'm Raven Santana