What if you could turn your slide notes into automatic subtitles during your presentation? That would be good for everyone. The advantage is that you can write out the presentation and then deliver it perfectly without having to use lots of text on your slides. As you give your talk you click through the subtitles (captions) in the same way as you click through your slides. Best part, this subtitles for slide shows tool is free from the Cambridge Inclusive Design Team.
The audience gets a better experience with the actual words, because there’s no reliance on speech recognition and no time delays.
Presenting from pre-made subtitles is great for presenters who are prone to lots of ‘ums’ and ‘ers’. It’s also good for speakers who:
Have to give a presentation in a language other than their native language
Have a quiet voice, or substantial accent
Need to customise the length of a presentation to an exact time slot
Want to make a video of their presentation
Have to deliver a presentation that was written by someone else
How do the subtitles work?
The Cambridge Subtitles for PowerPoint tool splits the text in your slide notes into short subtitles and adds these to the slide as animated text boxes. The tool adds a new toolbar to your ribbon which adds subtitles to your slides from the slide notes. The tool is offered free until the end of 2024 and available separately for Windows and Mac. You can download from the links on their webpage.
The UK has an ambitious target that 50% of journeys are walked or cycled by 2030. However, for some groups the quality of footpaths is a major deterrent to walking. According to a Living Streets report, 48% of older adults say they would walk more if footpaths were better maintained. Their fear of slips, trips and falls is enough to put them off. And there is a health cost for this – not just the falls, but the lack of incidental exercise.
The number of trips and falls due to poor footpath maintenance is difficult to establish due to lack of data. Living Streets has done their best to gather what information there is to find out the state of play.
Hospital admissions and insurance claims are two obvious sources of information, but even this is patchy.
Pedestrian falls happen to people of all ages, but as people age they are more likely to fall and to sustain an injury. As a consequence they are more likely to find themselves in institutional care.
One finding is that the number of hospital admissions from pedestrian falls was three times the number from pedestrian-vehicle crashes. So, if we had better data on pedestrian falls, it could change the priorities for road maintenance spending.
The Living Streets report uses 10 observational case studies to gather more information on footpaths and falls. In the UK vehicles are allowed to park over kerbs onto the footpath. This not only blocks the path of travel, it degrades the quality of the footpath. Local authorities had different ways for people to lodge complaints about footpath maintenance.
Can things be improved?
The bottom line is that budgets decide priorities, but whose budget? In the UK, falls cost the national health service more than $2.3b per year. This figure is set to rise as the population ages. However, the focus of this cost is falls indoors and unreported falls outdoors is still a problem. Using proxy figures, Living Streets estimates there could be more than one million outdoor falls among older adults each year.
The role of road strategies and plans
In the UK, the Highways Asset Management Plan allows for local authorities to claim they they taken reasonable care to make sure the road was not dangerous to pedestrians. Is this still valid in 2024? The focus on the cost to highways is not accounted for in the cost of hospital and social home-based care. Both these costs are borne by local authorities yet there is no connection between the two.
The problem with trying to apply the classic seven principles of universal design everywhere is that they don’t apply universally. This becomes apparent in an article about ethics and the workplace where some of the principles cannot apply. The seven principles are to help people think about inclusion, not use them as a checklist.
Equitable Use
Flexibility in Use
Simple and Intuitive to Use
Perceptible Information
Tolerance for Error
Low Physical Effort
Size and Space for Approach and Use
A paper published in Journal of Business Ethics explores the seven principles in relation to workplaces and people with disability. It soon becomes clear that it isn’t that useful especially if trying to apply all seven. Consequently, businesses will struggle to apply the seven principles and likely discouraged from taking action.
No matter how much universal design thinking goes into making workplaces inclusive, there will always be jobs that some people cannot do. The aim is to find or create jobs that suit people with different disabilities. That’s where ethics come into play.
In the article, the authors argue that inclusive and ethical workplaces involve both organisational and spatial choices. The key is cross-fertilization between organisation studies and universal design. This will improve understanding of the ethical issues when thinking about including people with disability in the workplace.
Cross-fertilising organisational and spatial studies with a universal design approach allows for more ethically sound and inclusive workplaces. This is useful for discovering what is possible and what is not. This also requires abandoning any notion of a perfect productive body. We are all collectively vulnerable and interdependent within workplaces.
Abandoning the Notion of a Perfect and Productive Body
Universal design invites organizations to rethink inclusion in the workplace, neither as a special accommodation nor as a recognition of the specialness of impairment. Disability is a natural and ubiquitous condition of being human.
Rethinking inclusion at work
Universal design also prompts a paradigm shift from deficit to diversity. The focus shifts to embracing the needs and abilities of all workers and ensuring equal opportunities for participation. The scope of universal design also encompasses all facets of organisational structure and power dynamics.
This paper examines the ethical issues of the inclusion of workers with disabilities in the workplace. It takes a cross-fertilization approach between organization studies, the ethics of care, and universal design.
It explores how organizations can use universal design to develop more inclusive workplaces. First by applying universal design principles to workspaces. Second by showing how universal design takes understanding of inclusion from the workspace to the workplace.
The paper discusses the ethical challenges and complexities of applying universal design across diverse organisation and industries. Finally, inclusion requires abandoning any notion of a perfect, productive body. Therefore, we share vulnerability and interdependence in the workplace.
The Dubai Universal Design Code covers everything you need to know about accessibility in the built environment. It’s a good example of joining dots between the accessible built environment, accessible transport and wayfinding. This is a very detailed document and appears to be a collation of standards documents from around the globe.
This document brings together all the elements of the Australian access standards with those that are missing but also essential. Under the three headings of built environment, transport and wayfinding are details of every design feature.
Built environment
The section on the built environment covers the usual elements such as ramps, doors, and sanitary facilities. In addition, it includes details such as glass surfaces, tables and chairs, and window hardware.
Public spaces
The section on public spaces is about urban design, pedestrian crossings, parking bays, restaurant terraces, construction works, bus shelters, and playgrounds. The buildings section includes a note for gender equality, stages and backstage, hotel rooms and mosques. Housing is included in this section along with libraries, schools, laboratories and car parking buildings.
Transport
The transport section includes details for urban buses, metro trains, trams, marine vessels, school buses, accessible taxis, and accessible websites and apps. Service details are covered with signage, seating, announcements, fares and ticketing. Accessible taxis have their own sub-section including vehicle design, and pick up and drop off points.
Wayfinding
The wayfinding section has a similar amount of detail: typography, symbols, layout and line spacing, Braille, and tactile maps. There are more than 300 pages to this document which indicates the level of detail. The document includes 3 annexures: drawings, anthropometrics, and required accessibility for each building type.
The Dubai Universal Design Codeis in plain English language and as such it can serve as a basic design guide to check for forgotten details on any project. A valuable contribution to the literature on standards, codes and guides for accessibility in one document.
Expo 2020 Dubai – a review of accessibility
This study gathered the experiences of people with disability and accessibility experts at the Expo 2020 with a view to making future large events accessible to all. One of the findings is that the efforts of access consultants was patchy because they were not involved from the start of any project. As a consequence, it was not possible to correct design errors.
While the provisions for people with disability were better than expected, they were incomplete or disconnected. Some lessons for the 2032 Brisbane Games?
Event management is a growing sector in the tourism industry and one of the fastest growing industries in the world. The sector contributes significantly to global economies and provides substantial employment opportunities.
The objective of this paper is to contribute to understanding the accessibility of large events in an increasingly technology-dependent industry.
We evaluated the accessibility of the Expo 2020 in Dubai. Expos are attended by millions of visitors and showcase the latest technologies and innovation. These factors make these events the ideal breeding ground for the implementation of advanced technologies.
The study draws on data from observation, in-depth interviews and online, qualitative questionnaires. The participants are people with disabilities (PwDs), the organizations in charge of the accessibility of the Expo and staff that worked at the event—some of whom were also PwDs.
We discuss the experiences of PwDs at the event, the accessibility provision in place and the challenges and insights of accessibility experts involved, as well as the implications and recommendations for managing the accessibility of large events.
Taking a cognitive perspective to architectural design is something architect Berta Brusilovsky Filer is passionate about. So she has written a book about it, Evaluating Cognitive Accessibility. Her free book is open access with the help of La Ciudad Accesible with the hope of reaching more people.
Cognitive accessibility is a fundamental aspect in the design of public spaces in the urban environment. At last this topic is receiving more attention in schools of design. The concept takes in easy reading, spatial orientation, signage and processes of interaction.
We rely on our brains to process information to make sense of the environment around us, but we don’t all process information in the same way. Consequently, if we design in a way that assists attention, perception, memory and problem solving, everyone benefits. Reducing cognitive load (too much going on) and maximising comprehension are key principles for independent movement around urban environments.
The book draws on the disciplines of architecture, social science and neuroscience, and presents an evaluation methodology for designers. However, it also provides a recent history of neuroscience and the role our brains play (or not) in making sense of things.
Lots of examples and photographs enhance this PDF publication. The chapter on recommendations covers the many elements of spatial orientation. The concluding chapter addresses the importance of involving people with cognitive conditions in the design process.
Accessibility statements are appearing in the tourism sector, so is it time to have accessibility statements for schools and universities? Well, why not ask staff and students? That’s just what two educational researchers did in the UK.
Teaching materials were checked for accessibility including digital media. Classroom delivered lectures came out best. The pandemic forced improvements for accessible online material.
Captioning videos turned out to be a problem for staff because the microphones didn’t always work in the lecture rooms. This led to a lot of time being spent on re-doing captions. Some staff preferred to wait until they were asked for special interventions rather than do them automatically. However, the aim should be to remove barriers before someone finds them.
Students were given the opportunity to comment on the accessibility statements as they were being devised. However, no comments were received. Once published they were circulated by email and received positive comments. Many thought it was good for the school to provide these and that they were well thought out and clear. Some students felt the same as some staff – wait until someone needs the extra access features.
The researchers countered the reactive approach by saying that in the long run, making everything accessible saves time and prevents barriers and negative attitudes. As other research has shown, not everyone is keen to disclose a hidden disability. This is in line with the Principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
From the conclusions
“Creating School-level statements allows a Department to demonstrate how accessibility is embedded in their teaching philosophy. Over time, this willingness to be demonstrably open and to proactively address differences among students can hopefully boost student recruitment.
“We found that misunderstandings still exist and they tend to weaken efforts to enhance accessibility in teaching and learning. For instance, some staff believe that accessibility only concerns individuals with specific learning needs. Or that student concerns should only be acted upon when they request support or particular adjustments.
Next steps involve focusing on raising awareness of accessibility statements across the School communities and providing extra staff training.
This paper provides an example of practice that outlines the benefits and challenges of creating School or Department level accessibility statements. Like all methods of improving accessibility, there is no one-size-fits-all statement. Through demonstrating one possibility, we show how to create an accessibility statement.
The discussion is informed by the results of a staff and student evaluation of accessibility statements issued by two Schools at the University of Birmingham. These Schools issued accessibility statements to show their commitment to accessibility. They created open dialogue around students’ varying requirements, and explained the accessibility features/limitations of their teaching and learning resources.
Victor Santiago Pineda reflects on the Burning Man community which recognises that everyone has something valuable to contribute. It challenges the idea that some people are worth more than others. This in turn introduced him to the concept of radical inclusion. Pineda discusses this concept in relation to cities and Amartya Sen’s Capability Model.
Much of the chapter covers well trodden ground with the seven principles of universal design and more statistics to show the imperatives of inclusive practice.
Can we universally design a whole city?
Pineda relates his conversation with Kat Holmes the inclusive design champion at Microsoft. In her book she talks of the “Mismatch” where people who design society determine who can participate and who’s left out.
The tail ends of the population bell curve become invisible when governments aggregate figures. It’s at the local government level where planning is more nuanced with more of a focus on “outliers”. They are in a better position to take a universal design approach to their plans and actions. By definition, national policies are played out at a local level. That is, in communities where people live, not in a national or state policy document.
An easy to read chapter that includes discussion on climate change and examples and images of successful urban transformations.
Fifteen percent of the global population has a disability, which will only increase with population ageing. Half of the world’s population live in cities and this is where we need to promote inclusion to address a rapidly changing demographic.
Disability is becoming increasingly common and cities must be transformed to be inclusive of everyone. The Capability Model argues that disability is created by barriers in the social environment and therefore requires social change. When barriers exist, inclusive communities work to transform the way they are organized to meet the needs of all people.
The radical inclusion is a framework aims to eliminate barriers that hinder individuals and communities from reaching their full potential. It goes beyond full participation to create inclusive systems that promote equity and resilience. Their aim is to remove barriers that perpetuate poverty, inequality, disempowerment, isolation, and exclusion.
Building the inclusive city
Most academic writing about inclusion, disability and urban design is based on Western culture and traditions. Building the Inclusive City, an open access book, covers a recent history of disability in city planning and the cultural context of a middle eastern approach. It brings together social sciences, politics and disability studies for an integrated approach to policy. There are three underpinning themes are:
disability research needs a contextual position
access and inclusion is both local and global
planning education should apply a disability lens to the field
The full title of the book is, Building the Inclusive City Governance, Access, and the Urban Transformation of Dubai. Published in 2020.
From the introduction to the book:
This book is an anthropological urban study of the Emirate of Dubai, its institutions, and their evolution. It provides a contemporary history of disability in city planning from a non-Western perspective and explores the cultural context for its positioning. Three insights inform the author’s approach.
First, situate disability research in a particular place. Second, access and inclusion forms a key part of both local and global planning issues. Third, 21st century planning education should apply a disability lens to the empirical, methodological, and theoretical advances of the field.
By bridging theory and practice, this book provides new insights on inclusive city planning and comparative urban theory. This book is a story of how equity and justice are central themes in building the cities of the future and of today.”
high rise buildings in Dubai
Editor’s note: I travelled to Dubai in 2015 and found much of the new infrastructure very accessible. Air conditioned bus stop shelters were a nice surprise.
Virtual tours using 3D photography is being used more frequently by tour companies to sell their experiences. For example, most cruise ships have virtual tours of their staterooms (cabins) so you can see what it looks like before you book. But virtual tours are a necessity for people who need to know exactly what a place looks like before they set out.
Visiting an unfamiliar location is a challenge when you have a disability. Will I be able to get in? Will there be loud noises? Is there be someone to help me? An interactive virtual tour can answer these questions.
Google Maps got onto the digital image idea quickly and now Street View is accepted as normal. However, once you leave the street to enter a place or space the vision ends. The rest of the journey becomes a visual magical mystery tour. For some people, photographic information is essential to give them confidence to make the journey in the first place.
When it comes to accessible tourism this type of imagery is a really good way to showcase good access features. It gives people with different disabilities the confidence to easily choose visitor experiences and accommodation. It also tells prospective visitors whether the claim of accessibility matches their individual requirements.
People who use mobility devices can see important details such as steps, ramps, lifts and a level path of travel. People who are neurodiverse and experience sensory overload in large, noisy places can either decide not to go, or to be prepared for this in advance. Knowing what to expect helps keep anxiety levels down.
Virtual tours are universal design
Regardless of whether a person has a disability, it is a comfort to know what to expect and avoid nasty surprises. That makes virtual tours and 3D images a universal design concept – good for everyone.
UK company Ocean 3D has a fact sheet with more detail on their website. There are also good examples of what these tours look like. Virtual tours for access purposes are not the same as promotional videos that give a general idea of a place.
Access and inclusion are considered a “good thing” until someone asks, “what will it cost?” Rarely does anyone ask “what does doing nothing cost?”. Many of the benefits are on the social scale, but are difficult for orthodox economists to measure with their current tools. So what to do about it? A report from Norway looks at studies of the socioeconomic benefits and costs of universal design and accessibility.
There is a risk that a disproportionate emphasis is put on the costs and benefits of universal design rather than its broader societal benefits.
The Nordic nations are really keen to implement universal design policies. The high priority that Norway gives universal design makes it an international leader. Other Nordic countries are yet to show the same commitment. The report maps international socioeconomic analyses and related analyses. Although using different methods, the studies emphasise cost-benefit analysis.
Why do an analysis?
Cost-benefit analyses are commissioned for different reasons. There are four main types:
1. regulatory impact assessments to analyse the potential socioeconomic consequences of new legislation and regulation related to universal design or accessibility; 2. business case studies of the profitability of investing in universal design and accessibility; 3. cost-benefit analyses as part of an assessment of reasonable accommodation, primarily with regard to discrimination legislation; and 4. research projects examining the effects of accessibility measures in general, or of specific measures, or their benefit to different target groups.
What do they look at?
Most of the analyses are about housing and the built environment with a focus on legal access requirements. The studies mainly focus on the consequences in terms of participation, employment, risk of falls, and health benefits for people with disability.
In the transport sector, studies mainly looked at travel time and willingness to pay more to improve accessibility. Business case studies dominate the field of information and communication technology.
Costs are usually easier to measure in monetary terms than benefits. Assumptions based on hypothetical reasoning, such as accessibility results in increased employment, lacks evidence.
From the conclusions
Many studies indicate there are significant benefits for people with and without disabilities. However, evaluating these benefits against quantifiable costs entails other variables.
Regulatory impact assessments of new legislation lacks data for calculating different effects. Specialist consultancy firms often carry out these assessments as government staff lack expertise.
In other studies, new knowledge emerges but with different methods. Designing these studies and collecting data is a constant challenge. Measuring the benefits of universal design in its broadest sense is even more difficult than measuring statutory access requirements.
It is at least as important to study why people choose not to use, say public transport, as it is to study the benefits for those who do. Any cost-benefit analysis of universal design and accessibility must be accompanied by what constitutes a cost and for whom.
The report presents areas for improvement and development including the ongoing exchange of experience and knowledge.
The title of the report is Universal design and socioeconomic analysis: A survey of analyses and literature. The main part of the report is in Swedish, but the English language summary begins on page 105. Included in the list of documents at the end is the Australian Building Codes Board Regulatory Impact Statement on accessible housing.
Abstract
What do measures for increased accessibility for people with disabilities cost? And what benefit do the measures provide? What analysis methods are there to evaluate the effects of increased accessibility? This report presents a survey of socio-economic analyses carried out in the Nordic countries and internationally.
An accessible society is a priority goal for the Nordic countries’ disability policy. The concept of universal design has become increasingly central to the Nordic countries’ work.
Calculations of the costs and benefits of measures for increased accessibility are requested by authorities and companies as well as organizations. The report presents studies, methods and analyses to evaluate the benefits and costs of various measures within universal design and accessibility.
The focus is on cost-benefit analyzes and impact studies. The mapping has been carried out via a literature search, surveys to experts and two workshops. A total of 45 studies and seven literature reviews are presented in an English-language appendix.
If we really want inclusive and accessible cities, we have to build it into city-wide master plans. Concepts of inclusion are integral to concepts of resilience but not often recognised as such. Victor Santiago Pineda discusses inclusion, universal design and the digital transformation of cities for the “new normal” in his book chapter.
Working together towards a common goal can enhance the overall resilience of the city.
By building inclusion and access into city-wide master plans, cities are taking steps to becoming Smart Nations.
Pineda provides examples from New York, Barcelona, Singapore, Dubai and other global cities.
7 principles for the “new normal”
These 7 principles are discussed in more detail in the book chapter.
1. Reflection—using past experiences to inform future decisions
2. Resourcefulness—recognizing alternative ways to utilize resources
3. Inclusivity—prioritizing broad consultation to create a sense of shared ownership in decision-making
4. Integration—bringing together a range of distinct systems and institutions
5. Robustness—well-conceived, constructed, and managed systems
6. Redundancy—spare capacity purposefully created to accommodate disruption
7. Flexibility—willingness and ability to adopt alternative strategies in response to changing circumstances
Emerging trends – belonging by design
Clear human rights frameworks, standards for accessible and usable digital products, collaboration with civil society organisations, and risk management plans. These elements and others are discussed in the context of universal design principles. “The emerging measures presented in this book build off Universal Design to help urban practitioners build belonging by design.”
Leading cities are not waiting for a transformation to take place – city leaders are taking charge. “There is a global movement building to accelerate an inclusive urban transformation”.
There is an urgent need for cities to prioritize inclusion and belonging in order to create truly sustainable and equitable communities. By adopting a unified and holistic approach, we can build cities that foster a sense of belonging for all residents.
The title of the book chapter by Victor Santiago Pineda is The Era of the New Normal in Inclusion and Belonging in Cities of Tomorrow.
From the abstract
Leading smart cities are transforming their urban planning processes by building inclusion and access into their city-wide master plans. This is resulting in cities that are more accessible, inclusive, and resilient.
A key factor is the adoption of key principles of resilience in their decision-making and planning processes. These include reflection, resourcefulness, inclusivity, integration, robustness, redundancy, and flexibility.
Inclusivity is crucial in building resilience. Cities need to prioritize broad consultation and create a sense of shared ownership in decision-making complemented by the use of human-rights based regulatory frameworks.
Universal design principles can also enhance the effectiveness of radical inclusion efforts. The practice of universal design has expanded to include policy, social participation, and health and wellness.
The ultimate success of these initiatives is also dependent on the ability of cities to effectively adopt and integrate technologies in a way that supports the needs of all citizens.
