Author: Jane Bringolf

Good design for transport in Victoria

Station concourse at West Footscray shows striped shadows on the floor from the large windows. A cyclist is the only person in the picture.
From the guide: photographer Peter Bennetts

Getting out and about easily contributes to our wellbeing, health and productivity. And well designed transport facilities, interchanges and connections add value to public places. The Office of the Victorian Government Architect is promoting good design for transport as a public benefit.  When it comes to pubic transport, it needs to be safe, accessible and easy to use. Good design can also transform and influence how people feel and behave in public settings. 

The Office of the Victorian Government Architect has a Good Design + Transport guide that covers heritage, legislation, good design principles, and key steps. 

While the key steps don’t mention disability access specifically, the Government procurement processes require a universal design approach. The key steps for design include collaboration and community engagement as well as land use and urban connections. Community input at the early stages is listed as a good design strategy. 

The other important advice is to review designs in the early stages and throughout the design process. This aligns with universal design principles and results in fewer costly mistakes. 

Good Design Principles

Good Design + Transport lists good design principles as functional, enduring, sustainable and enjoyable. These principles provide guidance and a framework. 

Functional

      • Safe, legible – understandable, feels safe and secure, with good visual links and strong passive surveillance. The built form is clear and way-finding is carefully considered as part of the project.
      • Seamless – a cohesive and linked network which is easy to understand and navigate. It integrates different transport modes, providing direct connections and easy transitions.
      • Universally inclusive – main access routes are obvious and accessible to all members of the community.
      • Walkable – support pathways and useable public space which prioritises pedestrian connections and links into local streets.

Enduring

Relevant across life-spans of many generations and representative of its time and of high quality.

      • Durable – easy to maintain and will age gracefully.

Sustainable

Promote positive environmental, social, cultural and economic values. 

      • Engaging – reflect and respond to diverse community values and encourage positive interaction.
      • Socially responsive – support community land aspirations of a place connecting nearby facilities, incorporating shops, art, recreation spaces.
      • Site responsive – respond to specific local conditions inclusive of built form, landscape, topography and orientation.
      • Valuing heritage – respond to history, memory, understanding of and continuity with the past.

Enjoyable

Create a desire to experience the journey rather than just pass through.

      • Delightful – authentic, sensitive and intelligent in design of form, space, proportion, craft and detail.

Victoria also has an Accessible Public Transport Action Plan which designers should also reference in their designs. It supports their Absolutely Everyone state disability plan. 

Editor’s comment: Note in the picture above the stripes caused by the sun coming in the behind the many upright struts. These stripes cause confusion for people who have difficulties with visual perception. That includes people with dementia who don’t know where to step, and people who see this as “visual noise”. 

 

AI for captioning

A speaker stands at a lectern and captioning sceen is behind his right shoulder
Dedicated captioning screen close to the speaker.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can take captioning to another level claims Microsoft. AI for automatic speech recognition removes the need for a human captioner for lectures in universities and elsewhere. The Microsoft AI blog article and video below focuses on deaf students, but more people are taking to captioning on their phones for convenience.

Captioning helps all students by adding another layer of communication and this point is made in the article. The captioning is turned into transcripts and students have a reference to read after the lecture. They can also have the lecture automatically translated into several languages.

This is a detailed article and covers automatic speech recognition, translations, and a growing demand for accessibility. This technology is not expected to take over from Auslan or ASL as they are languages in their own right. However, this is another example of how technology is helping humans by taking over from humans and bringing the advantages to more people.  

Note on the image at the top: The image shows Dr Ger Craddock at the inaugural Australian Universal Design Conference in 2014. A captioner sat in the room to caption real time. Speaker names and place names were given to the captioner beforehand to prevent errors.

 

Car-free zones: good for everyone?

five lane city highway full of cars.. We need car free zones.Discussion about the benefit of electric versus fossil fuel vehicles will go on for some time. Regardless of the propulsion method, roads take up a lot of our land and environment. Case studies of road closures in favour of pedestrians, are appearing regularly in the literature. The aim of these car-free zones is to give more space to people to move around by walking and cycling. But not everyone can ride a bike or use public transport and this group is probably bigger than we think. 

Climate activists are keen to reduce the number of cars on our roads whether electric or not. An article on the World Economic Forum website discusses the issues with just one sentence about people with disability. This is going to be a major issue if climate activists forget diversity and disability. 

There are more people with mobility issues than most people think. Some are not in the disability statistics because they fall under long term health conditions. Then there are non-physical reasons for using cars. 

Personal vehicles are treated as personal safety devices by people who are physically frail of have a psychosocial condition. That also means they don’t like taxis or car share. People who become blind and have not learned the ways of public transport will use taxis and ride share to drop them exactly where they need to go. Public transport still has gender issues too. 

Cars are still mobility devices

With uneven or absent footpaths, older people begin to feel unsafe and then the car becomes a mobility device. When they cannot drive, they prefer a family member to drive them to the shops and medical appointments. That’s partly because they haven’t used public transport in the past and/or don’t feel safe. 

And cycling with the week’s shopping after picking up a child from school or child care is not an option for many parents.

The title of the article is, Are cars an urban design flaw? Cities advance car-free zones. The article presents case studies across Europe in the quest to reduce road space and increase living space. And car-free doesn’t mean pedestrian only – it means cyclists can mingle with pedestrians. For people with hearing or sight impairments, or people unsteady on their feet, this is not helpful. 

The city of Oslo is increasing their car free zones, but are making sure people who need to use a car are catered for. 

Accessible nature

A rocky mountain scene from the Atacama Desert in Chile. This was not accessible nature. Photo by Jane Bringolf
Valle de Luna, Atacama, Chile

Are ableist views preventing the tourism and recreation sectors from being accessible and inclusive? This is a question arising from a scoping review of policies, practices and infrastructure related to nature-based settings. The review found many barriers were related to operator or designer assumptions about the value of the experience for people with different disabilities. And “accessible nature” is yet to be expressed in the form of access standards. 

Assumptions about value such as “this place is about the view, so why would blind people be interested?” is rarely explicitly expressed. Rather, it is embedded in systems and processes that place barriers, albeit inadvertently, to accessibility for all. But other barriers exist such as threats to conservation values that say, a footpath could impose. Consequently, ways to minimise the negative impacts on both social and ecological aspects should be found when introducing built structures. 

A more worrying view is that it is not safe for people with disability to experience certain landscapes. This perpetuates organisational notions that people with disability need extra care or special settings. Or that people with disability can’t or don’t experience nature in the same way as non-disabled people. 

From the conclusions

In the conclusions, the authors lament, “Perhaps more troublingly, there are indications that such gaps are intertwined in cultures within the tourism and recreation sector that perpetuate ablest views of what should be considered a genuine and laudable way to experience nature.”

The authors conclude there is a pressing need for specific standards for nature-based tourism and recreation spaces. People developing such standards should ensure they are not underpinned by current ableist views.

The health and wellbeing factors of nature contact are well established. So, it’s important for everyone to have easy access to the experiences nature offers.

The title of the scoping review is, Accessible nature beyond city limits – A scoping review. The authors are based in Canada.

Abstract

The health and well-being benefits of nature contact are well known, but inequitably distributed across society. Focusing on the access needs of persons with a disability, the purpose of this study was to systematically examine research on the accessibility of nature-based tourism and recreation spaces outside of urban/community settings.

Following a scoping review methodology, this study sought to examine policies, services, physical infrastructures, and regulatory standards intended to enable equitable use of nature-based settings by individuals of all ages and abilities, particularly persons with a disability.

In total, 41 relevant studies were identified and analyzed. Findings indicate that there are considerable gaps in the provision of services and information that enable self-determination in the use and enjoyment of nature, and that accessibility in nature-based settings is conceptualized through three interrelated policy/design pathways: the adaptation pathway, the accommodation pathway, and the universal design pathway.

As a whole, accessibility policy and standards research specific to natural settings outside of urban/community settings is highly limited.

Management implications
There are growing calls to promote inclusive nature experiences in tourism and recreation spaces outside of community settings. Management of such spaces must reconcile equity concerns with a host of other priorities like environmental conservation.

In the case of promoting universal accessibility, few studies offer insight into the detailed standards that must be met to create barrier-free access, let alone how to integrate such standards with other management priorities.

Transdisciplinary research partnerships that involve management personnel, environmental and public health researchers, and persons with a disability are needed to identify effective management synergies.

Photo by Jane Bringolf

Braille and tactile paintings

Two men are standing next to a painting. One man has his hands on the painting. Braille and tactile paintings.
Tactile painting at Pune Airport

Audio describing a painting to a person who is blind requires a special skill. It takes more than talking about shape, colour and content. It also requires an interpretation of the message the artist wishes to convey. But what if the painting has tactile outlines, borders and Braille scripts? Braille and tactile paintings became the mission of Chintamani Hasabnis. 

Chintamani Hasabnis creates paintings accessible to people who are blind. This was after watching a young woman crossing the street with a white cane. He thought, “I paint so many pictures but I can’t show any of them to her.”

An article on the News Hook website tells how Hasabnis worked towards creating his paintings. He said it took a while before he realised he had to make something people could touch. A visit to a school for blind children gave him the answer – paintings with Braille and tactile elements. Pune International Airport in India was one of the first places to display one of his paintings. 

Hasabnis has completed 30 paintings, mostly portraits, and of course, sighted people can also share the tactile joy of these paintings. 

The video below, with captions, shows some of the paintings and how the Braille is incorporated into the picture. 

This is not the first example of Braille painting. The Guy Cobb painting below is on the Wikimedia site is from 2010.

A man in a dark suit places his hands on a brightly coloured painting representing blue flowers on a yellow and orange background.
Guy Cobb Painting

QDN’s Co-design principles

Front cover of QDN Co-design priniciples.Co-design is the new buzzword in the field of disability. But co-design isn’t only about disability inclusion. It’s a design process that seeks the best design for the intended users. Including people from a diversity of backgrounds, ages, levels of capability and experience is good practice. It’s how you do universal design. But what is it exactly and how does it work? 

The ultimate in co-design is to include users from design concept stage. The next best thing is to include users in testing the first prototype. Many design firms say budget and time constraints prevent them from implementing this highly iterative method. But how much does it cost to remedy poor design and lack of compliance? 

Co-design should not be confused with community consultation which seeks opinions about a design. User testing is not a form of co-design either. Co-design is where designers and users share the power of designing together. Co-design processes work for developing products, buildings, websites, services, policies and guidelines.

Queenslanders with Disability Network (QDN) have published their Co-Design Principles. This document obviously focuses on people with disability and the Queensland context. Regulation, legislation and policies such as the state disability plan fill most pages. 

 Five values underpin QDN’s co-design principles and processes:

      • Authentic Voice – We ensure those with limited or no voice are heard and valued
      • Collaborative Action – We learn from collective experiences, values, and wisdom 
      • Rights – We believe in a human rights approach 
      • Respect – We value human difference and diversity 
      • Resilience – We are here for the long term.

Co-design processes

A three page summary has the key points above and the co-design processes. 

The starting place – Craft the question that reflects intent/purpose and invites inquiry. 
Build the team – Get diversity and support inclusion
Discovery Phase – See the issue from different viewpoints, and perspectives. Hear from others including those who disagree
Pause and Reflect – Take time to pause and reflect on what you have learnt in the discovery phase and what you still don’t know before jumping to solutions
Sense-making – Look at the data, story, research, and evidence in their raw form and work together to make sense and meaning of what has been gathered
Generate options – Stage where sense-making starts to yield conclusions, ideas
and possibilities, and people get in the creative zone
Developing Prototypes – Generate as many ideas as possible and develop a working example of the policy, service, program, product, or scenario-based solution
Learning, reworking, and refining – Part of the learning cycle and reworks can produce ‘prototype’ – the solution for testing, piloting, or putting into action
Embed what works – Turn it into action and make it real. Keep people engaged and stay accountable.

The QDN website has more information about the organisation and their activities.

See other articles on co-design: The right to participate in co-design, and What does co-design mean? How does it work? 

Consulting people with disability

Front cover Consulting with persons with disabilities.
Full guidelines

Consulting people with disability just needs careful planning. Yes, of course it takes time, but all consultation takes time. But it is always worth it because it saves time in rectifications later. 

The United Nations Inclusion Strategy has guidelines for consulting persons with disabilities. The main guideline document is very detailed and links with the UN Convention Indicator 5. It covers representative organisations, when to consult, and how to do it. The Easy Read version is very helpful for everyone. 

 

Front cover of Easy Read Guide Consulting people with disability.
Easy Read version

The Easy Read version has the key information. It covers the importance of consulting, taking part in decisions, and working with representative organisations. There are links to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals with the promise of “leave no one behind”. 

One key point in this version is that people with disability should be involved in decisions about everything – not just things to do with disability. 

 

Some days don’t have 24 hours

Lots of clock faces piled on top of each other showing different times. Week has seven days and every day has 24 hours. We all know that. But some people don’t have the same amount of time available within 24 hours as others. And it isn’t a case of poor time management. Time gets stolen. So what does it mean when I say, “some days don’t have 24 hours”?

Sheri Byrne-Haber pinpoints the issues in her article in Medium about the disability time thief. Sometimes it’s a few moments here and there, and sometimes it a regular chunk. 

This article shows why consulting with people with disability is not a matter of setting a date and time and sending out the invitation. The time of day and the place are really important considerations. 

The title of Byrne-Haber’s article is We don’t all have the same 24 hours. Anyone who thinks that we do lives in a monster privilege bubble.

 

Accessible websites need accessible content

Close up view of a web page where content can be added. Accessible websites need accessible content.As our lives transition to digital formats it’s important to know some digital accessibility basics. Creating accessible websites is the first step. But accessible websites need accessible content too. If your Word or PDF documents end up on a website, will they be accessible? 

Gregg Vanderheiden from the Trace R&D Center has developed an Accessibility Masterlist which has more detail on accessible digital design. The Masterlist acts as both information and a checklist for developers and others.

The Masterlist is helpful for anyone engaging a web designer because it shows what needs to be considered.  Most web designers know about web accessibility and say they will meet the standards. However, standards are a minimum and tend to get tacked on at the end. Not the best solution – better to be integrated to avoid digital clunkiness. 

Some Quicksheets

Here are some of the 33 Trace R&D Center Quicksheets that summarise information:

What are Learning Disabilities?

Quick Guide for Accessible PowerPoint presentations

PDF readers with Readability Features

Web Resources

Towards Accessibility for Cognitive, Language and Learning Disabilities

Readability

Accessibility and Universal Usability/Design Journals related to ICT

What is Photosensitive Epilepsy / Photosensitive Seizure Disorders?

Web Accessibility Legislation

What is Low Vision?

Social Media Accessibility

Disability Marketing

Making Images Accessible (Alt text and more)

Overview of Web Accessibility

What is Blindness?

Keyboard Accessibility

Web Accessibility Standards

What is Physical Disability?

Digital Literacy

What is Deaf and Hard of Hearing?

Cognitive Disability

Accessible content – everyone’s business

A laptop is open on a desk and a tablet next to it. Accessible online content is everybody's business.You don’t have to be a technical expert to do simple things such as using a clear font and ensuring colour contrast. Describing images using the alt-text feature helps people with screen reader. It also adds to search engine optimisation which means Google will like you more. Captioning videos is essential because it is useful for everyone – it’s universal design. 

An easy-to-read magazine article from Canada explains more on their blog page, which is an example of clear text and plain language. The title of the article is, Experts calling on businesses to make their online content more accessible.

Web design is one part, uploaded documents also need to be accessible.Check out the WCAG for people who haven’t read them. 

A related resource is the Handbook for accessible graphic design. .

Making online spaces accessible

A laptop screen is open showing participants in an online meeting. Making online meetings accessible.Citizen action has never been more important and much of this is done online and through social media. This is due to the ease of technology, a pandemic and plain economics. Consequently, it’s important to make online spaces accessible for everyone. 

On The Commons Social Change website, Manisha Amin provides some advice form making online spaces accessible. Here are some facts about the Australian population:

      • 18% living with disability
      • 70% of disabilities are invisible
      • 20% have a long term health condition
      • 28% live in regional and remote areas
      • 48% born overseas or have parent born overseas
      • 8% men are colour blind

These figures don’t include people who have a temporary loss of capability, such as a broken leg. 

An inclusive social environment, online or face to face, is created through respect and listening. Being accountable for your own emotions and accepting all experiences are valid are important too.

Online meetings have benefits and drawbacks and not everyone needs the same features. For example, having video on helps people to lip read and see facial expressions. But some people with neurodiverse conditions find video distracting. 

Live captioning is better than auto-generated captioning and provides a transcript later. Captioning is also good for people with limited English language skills or find different accents difficult to understand. 

The article is titled, Digital Accessibility: Making Online Spaces Accessible. There’s more information about preparing for meetings and good advice about learning to be inclusive. Don’t worry about not getting it right first time – it’s a learning journey for everyone.

In addition, meeting facilitators need to be aware of the power dynamics in the room. Who holds the pen? Who has the loudest voice or the most influence?  

Sheri Byrne Haber has also written about Zoom for people with vision loss.

Economics of universal design in ICT

Part of a computer screen showing code. Economics of universal design in ICT.It is often thought that economic arguments will win the day if social justice arguments are ignored. This may be partially true if these arguments are allowed to be heard. “On Assessing the Costs and Benefits of Universal Design of ICT”, is another attempt to show that universal design has cost benefits, particularly if you take the longer view. This research paper on the economics of universal design in ICT is from Norway.

Abstract: In the ICT and IT domains, universal design is typically viewed as a burden and an expense, and its application is often justified only by ethics and/or legislation. Advocates for universal design are arguing that it is cost-effective, but so far there are few studies that document this in a detailed way. In this work, we discuss related research and studies dealing with the costs and benefits of accessible and usable ICT solutions.

In particular, we discuss the findings regarding what is a universally designed solution, what is needed to make such a solution, how much does it cost, what impact can be anticipated by the extra effort, and how it can be measured.

Finally, we suggest an approach for carrying out cost-benefit analyses of developing universally designed solutions. There is a weak indication that the economical benefits of UD solutions are much higher than the initial and running costs.

I think it is problematic to talk “cost-benefit” because politically it seems it has to benefit those who are not excluded. “Cost effectiveness” is a somewhat different measure with a focus on outcomes rather than outputs. Schraner et al have developed a different model using assistive technology as a case study.  Jane Bringolf, Editor.

Creating a walkway with universal design

Stovner Tower in Oslo. Aerial view showing the looping walkway built on large timber poles - a walkway with universal design.Lookout towers are usually built with steps, so how can you make them accessible? The answer is of course a ramp, but not just any ramp. The Stovner Tower in Oslo shows how you can create a beautiful walkway with universal design. It curves and loops for 260 metres until it reaches 15 metres above ground. This provides excellent views of the city and landscape beyond. Located on the forest edge it is a destination for everyone to enjoy.

The project is described in detail with several images on the DOGA website. The key part of the design was the co-design process and community consultations. This was essential for gaining community support at the beginning of the project.

The path is wide enough for two prams or wheelchairs to pass each other. The slightly inward sloping railing gives an additional sense of safety.  Lighting at night makes it attractive as well as safe and accessible both day and night. 

The Stovner Tower illuminated at night.The tower has become a popular destination for both locals and visitors. It’s used for weddings, meditation, exercise, celebrations and encourages people to experience nature.

This project is an example of collaboration between local government, landscape architects and contractors. Universal design drove both the design process and design outcomes. It won a landscape architecture award for universal design in 2020. There’s a video showing it with snow and lighting on the visitor website.

Norway has universal design written into their planning and zoning codes. Other articles on Norway are: 

 

Downsizing? But where to?

A row of flat front row homes in blue and white. Downsizing? But where to?The idea of downsizing is appealing to empty-nesters. But where can they go?  The biggest barrier to downsizing is finding a suitable home in the right location. Many empty nesters just want a smaller home and yard. Governments have a vested interest in older Australians having a home in which it is safe to grow old. It’s cost effective for everyone.

Sometimes it isn’t the home they want to downsize – it’s the garden maintenance. ‘Empty’ bedrooms do not necessarily mean that a home is under-utilised.  This is a crude measure because spare bedrooms are needed as guest and hobby rooms. Spending time at home means the home has to do more. A home too small limits options.

An expanse of green lawn in a suburban back yard.The Conversation discusses these issues and has links to well-researched reports. The title of the article is, Half of over-55s are open to downsizing – if only they find homes that suit them.

A similar article was published earlier in The Conversation titled, Lack of housing choice frustrates would-be downsizers.

When it comes to house size, Bruce Judd and colleagues from UNSW found that retirees generally want three bedrooms for flexibility of lifestyle. Some for visiting family and looking after grandchildren. Others need room for hobbies or a study. Some couples sleep separately for health reasons. Typically, retirees spend more time at home now that they are not working, so space becomes even more important.  

Baby Boomers defy predictions.

Facade of a large two storey home commonly called a McMansion Housing experts predicted “the great senior sell-off”. But baby boomers aren’t downsizing – they are staying put.

Mimi Kirk in a CityLab article looked at new research from Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies that discusses issues related to housing type, affordability and the different expectations of millennials and boomers. Millennials are generally uninterested in the style of their parents’ homes. So there goes the myth that boomers are (selfishly) holding onto homes that millennials could buy. 

Policy makers think that downsizing is largely about finances and homes being too large to suit ageing in place. But the evidence is something else. Research findings put to bed some of the myths younger policy makers have about older people and their ideas on housing.

“…high cost of new multi-storey apartments means that householders don’t necessarily have enough money from the sale of their larger family house to buy an apartment, particularly after stamp duty, bank and real estate agent fees, and moving costs are included.”  AHURI report, 2018.

Suitable housing in the future?

In the future, people living in Victoria, ACT, Queensland, NT and Tasmania will have the benefit of universal design features in new homes. However, the NSW, WA and SA governments have decided that this important change to the building code isn’t necessary. To keep up to date on the latest, follow the ANUHD website and join their network of supporters. The 2022 edition of the National Construction code will have the updated design features. 

 

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