Jane Bringolf, Author at - Page 52 of 109

Housing and Indigenous disability: Lived experience

All new housing should be designed for accessibility to the silver level of the Livable Housing Design Guidelines. This is one of the recommended policy actions from AHURI research on housing and Indigenous disability. A systematic inspection process for new builds to ensure compliance with the guidelines is also needed. They also recommend a new classification in the building code for “housing for Indigenous people”.

Researchers found housing conditions were poor, inaccessible and that few people were aware of modifications for making life easier.

Indigenous Australians have a high rate of disability and chronic illness but there is little housing available to support them. Disability is under-reported in this population, particularly in remote areas. This is because the concept of disability varies between urban and rural locations. In urban areas where people know about the NDIS their understanding of disability is similar to the non-indigenous population. Remote communities relate to disability as wheelchairs.

The title of the executive summary is, Housing and Indigenous disability: lived experiences of housing and community infrastructure. The AHURI website has the full report, a positioning paper and a policy bulletin.

Note that since this publication, the Livable Housing Design Standard has been mandated in the 2022 National Construction Code. It has the Silver features of the Livable Housing Design Guidelines.

Making Mosques Accessible

The classic design of a mosque makes access difficult for people who have difficulty with mobility, removing shoes, hearing the call to prayer, and generally using facilities. The three critical elements for making mosques accessible are the prayer hall, the ablution area and sanitary facilities.

People cannot enter the mosque with a personal mobility device or shoes. This is to stop dirt from the outside entering the mosque. But it also creates major barriers, especially for older people. The United Arab Emirates, and Dubai in particular, is keen to promote the inclusion of people with disability in all aspects of life. Consequently, the Ministry of Community Development commissioned an access plan and that includes mosques. As a result, Nazem Fawzi Al-Mansoor has come up with a checklist for making mosques accessible.

The title of the short conference paper with the checklist is, Universal Mosque/Masjid Design. It was presented at the 3rd Universal Design Conference held in UK in 2016.

The checklist includes some basic features found anywhere such as the width of doorways. Seats for shoe removal, space to park mobility devices, and an accessible ablution area feature in the list.

Mosque detail

Mosque Bukhara

Photos: Bolo Hauz Mosque, Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

Beyond minimum standards

Why does the design of built environment continue to fail people with disability? Many have asked this question since Selwyn Goldsmith raised it in the 1960s. Many have found answers. But these are not enough to make a difference to the results. New buildings continue to pose barriers in spite of regulations and standards. Going beyond minimum standards is therefore a big ask.

Imogen Howe, an architect with 10 years experience, wants to find the answer in her PhD study. Her research questions are something we can all think about:

- Why and how does the Australian built environment continue to marginalise people with disabilities, despite the Disability Discrimination Act (1992)?
- How does building design reproduce exclusion and segregation? How is this underpinned by design assumptions and approaches both contemporary and historic?
- Do building and design codes in Australia, NZ, Canada and the UK address dignity?
- How do we educate becoming architects about the need for inclusive design and then how to enact it in their designs?

References are made to key thinkers and writers on the topic such as Amie Hamraie, C.W. Mills, Joss Boys and Michel Foucault.

These questions are posed in an article framed as a discussion piece in Academia.edu. The key provocations for the discussion are: eugenics and stigma in design, society structures, and how could this be different. The title of the article is, “The need for inclusive design: going beyond the minimum standards in the built environment”.

Beyond compliance with universal design

A guide book from Ireland on the built environment draws together Irish standards with a practical universal design approach. Many of the standards mirror those in Australia so most of the information is compatible. Parking, siting, pedestrian movement, steps, ramps, lifts, seating and bollards are all covered.

Building for Everyone, External environment and approach covers each of the features in detail. While the style of tactile indicators varies from the Australian design, the advice on placement is still useful. There is a reference list of related documents including Australian Standards. The guide is undated, but probably published circa 2010. This means some of the technology, such as parking ticket machines is a little outdated.

There is also a section at the end on human abilities and design. It covers walking, balance, handling, strength and endurance, lifting, reaching, speech, hearing, sight, touch and more.

Published by the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design in Ireland it is very detailed. Checklists help guide the reader through the material. This booklet links with others in the series, particularly the one on entrances and circulation spaces. The good aspect of these guides is the perspective of a universal design approach rather than proposing prescriptive design parameters.

Universal design approach to transportation

Much of our transportation infrastructure was designed last century when the focus was on getting people to work and school. People with disability were not considered as part of the working or school populations at that time. But times have changed and “average” must evolve to “inclusive” because there is no such thing as the average user. The time has come for a universal design approach to transportation.

Universal design makes transit stations more functional for a wider range of people, based not only on disability but also on factors such as age and size. It helps all users navigate unfamiliar environments.

A magazine article on inclusive transit systems suggests one way to think about the transit system is to recall an experience in another country. Was it easy to use? Did you feel you could confidently and independently navigate your way to your destination? How was buying a ticket? If you got confused, potentially, new users will be confused at home too. These are good benchmarks for home country design.

The more intuitive, accessible, language-neutral and understandable the transit environment becomes, the more everyone benefits.

A scene of the station showing people near the ticket barrier gates.

Transit Universal Design Guidelines

The Transit Universal Design Guidelines (TUDG) promote the value of implementing a universal design approach that supports all user groups. And it doesn’t start and end at the station door. The environment leading up to the transit system must be part of the plan. That includes footpaths. The article picks out three key elements.

Key elements

User Groups: consider who you are ultimately designing for. This section includes accommodations required to satisfy the needs of specific user groups. This includes individuals with visual, hearing, speech, or mobility disabilities and needs, among others.

Aspects of Accommodation: identify features and techniques that can enhance the end user experience — from handrails, to hearing assistant systems, to tactile pathways, to mobile ticketing apps.

Implementation: understand the process and approach for implementing universal design through advocacy, engagement, and evaluating and finalizing design options. With this approach, transit agencies can attract new and retain existing ridership and provide solutions that are inclusive and universal from the start.

The Transit Universal Design Guidelines are comprehensive and stretch to 53 pages. The document aims to be a decision-making tool for transit agencies, designers and policy-makers.

The title of the article is, Designing More Inclusive, Accessible Transit Systems for All.

For more information on accessible and inclusive transit systems and transportation, check out the the Transportation section of this website.

A Melbourne tram moves along a quiet street after the rain. A cyclist is in the background.

Tactile or 3D?

Which type of map is best – tactile or 3D? Three researchers from Monash University carried out a study to see if 3D printed models offered more information than tactile graphics such as maps. There were some interesting findings that were presented in a conference paper. The abstract gives a good overview:

From the abstract

Tactile maps are widely used in Orientation and Mobility (O&M) training for people are blind or have low vision. Commodity 3D printers now offer an alternative way to present accessible graphics. However it is unclear if 3D models offer advantages over tactile equivalents for 2D graphics such as maps.

In a controlled study with 16 touch readers, we found that 3D models were preferred, enabled the use of more easily understood icons, facilitated better short term recall and allowed relative height of map elements to be more easily understood.

Analysis of hand movements revealed the use of novel strategies for systematic scanning of the 3D model and gaining an overview of the map. Finally, we explored how 3D printed maps can be augmented with interactive audio labels, replacing less practical braille labels. Our findings suggest that 3D printed maps do indeed offer advantages for O&M training.

The full title of the paper is, “Accessible Maps for the Blind: Comparing 3D Printed Models with Tactile Graphics“. The article is also available on ResearchGate.

Manchester and Brussels: A place to grow old

A city square in Belgium showing heritage architecture. People are milling about in the square in Brussels. — Brussels city square

The WHO Age Friendly Cities and Communities framework remains a robust method for creating age-friendly places. We can learn a lot from cities that signed up to the WHO Global Network that began in 2007. A book chapter compares Brussels and Manchester as a place to grow old. It shows that different policy approaches result in quite different outcomes.

The first part of the chapter covers introductory material and detail about the 8 domains of the WHO program. The interesting part, especially for local government, is the comparison of approaches and outcomes for Brussels and Manchester. Brussels, for example, focused on social housing for older people and street safety. Manchester focused on lifetime neighbourhoods and quality of life.

Manchester was more inclusive of different ethnic backgrounds than Brussels which also has a diverse population. In short, Brussels was about keeping people safe, and Manchester was about living life. The paper goes on to discuss the barriers to implementing the programme and developing age-friendly policies. There are some good recommendations at the end of this paper which was published in 2015.

The chapter title is, Developing Age-Friendly Cities: Case Studies from Brussels and Manchester and Implications for Policy and Practice. It begins on page 277.This chapter is one of several interesting papers in Environmental Gerontology in Europe and Latin America.

You can find out more about the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group and a short video on what they are aiming to achieve.

WHO Age Friendly Cities

Age Friendly Cities has its founding concepts in healthy ageing. Well if it’s healthy for older people it’s healthy for everyone. These cities should be walkable, compact and have infrastructure that supports liveability. But planning laws haven’t this and continue to address ageing in terms of age-segregated living arrangements.

Canada was at the forefront of the development of the WHO Age Friendly Cities program in 2006. But that hasn’t been enough to overcome entrenched planning and development processes. No Place to Grow Old: How Canadian Suburbs Can Become Age-Friendly, found that although planners and others have concerns about an ageing population, their thinking hasn’t adapted. Consequently, little has changed in the last ten years.

The survey found that older people were seen as a special-needs group rather than establishing inclusive policy solutions. The report makes some useful recommendations and the findings are applicable to any urban area in any location.

You can find a list of Australian cities or communities that are members of the WHO Global Network of Age Friendly Cities on the WHO website. You can also find out how your community can become a member of the Global Network.

The graphic above depicts the 8 domains of life that need to be considered in making a community age-friendly.

Automated driverless vehicles: Where are we?

A good question to ask about automated driverless vehicles – where are we? Five years ago there was much talk about how automated driverless vehicles would change the way we get around. While the promise is still there in terms of technology, we are still a long way from regulation and planning. That means accessible self-driving vehicles are a long way off.

An article in The Conversation explains the six levels of automation from driver assistance to full automation. Many new cars have a level of driver assistance such as keeping the car in lane, and speed control. But they require the driver to take over if necessary.

Regulators are struggling to keep pace. They need to come up with standard tests for safety and benchmarking their algorithms. The public is unsure about automation, but can see advantages especially for those who cannot currently drive.

What do drivers think?

A yellow automated driverless vehicle is parked by the footpath. — Automated driverless vehicle

What do people really think about autonomous vehicles? A survey found two main types of response: one cognitive and one emotional. Overall there is a general acceptance of autonomous vehicles – the cognitive response. However, concerns were expressed over safety, trust and control – the emotional responses.

Negative views held by a few tended to be based on emotional factors. The key point is that assumed resistance factors, such as those relating to ethics, hacking and liability, are not top of mind in the community. This means education and information can be better tailored with this information in mind.

The title of the article is, Dimensions of attitudes to autonomous vehicles. Published in Urban, Planning and Transport Research, it is open access.

It will be about passengers

Driverless cars will be about passengers not drivers. Although a subtle difference, it focuses thought on users as passengers rather than drivers. And this is important because there will be more diversity of users than there are currently drivers. But this raises accessibility and other issues which are discussed in two papers.

When it comes to assistance it is usually the driver that helps riders with disabilities with getting in and out, and pointing them in the right direction. A report from Intelligent Transport Systems discusses these issues in a matter of fact way. Policy makers and vehicle designers need to think across all these issues. The title of the report is, Driverless Cars and Accessibility.

David Williams in his article alerts us to the size and influence of tech giants and how they can utilise the data they can collect. His concern is for high-tech companies manipulating and controlling our lives further. He provides a table of vehicle enhancements and the time it took or is taking for the market to fully embrace them. The title of the article is, Driverless cars: benefit to humanity or road to an Orwellian dystopia?

What about trust?

The race is on for designing a self driving car that everyone trusts. While this is essential, it also needs to be a car that everyone can use. Mark Wilson writes for FastCompany about his test “drive” experiences of these vehicles. Reading his detailed experiences from a universal design perspective, there is still a way to go in the overall design. The developments so far show much thought about convenience, such as your smartphone linking to the car so it knows it’s you. They are using the phone to give instructions. This is a technology that needs to be followed closely as it has the potential to improve inclusion or inadvertently cause more exclusion. A very interesting article; “The fate of self-driving cars hangs on a $7 trillion design problem“.

6 Steps for effective wayfinding

A street signpost with multiples signs going in several directions. They need 6 septs to effective wayfinding. — Image by Kim Broomhall from Pixabay

Wayfinding is more than just putting up a sign, but where signs are needed it’s time to call an experiential graphic designer. They have expertise in understanding human behaviour and perception. Knowledge of access codes is also part of their skill-set. The key point is to involve them at the beginning of a project for best effect. A SEDG blog post has 6 steps for effective wayfinding.

6 Steps for Effective Wayfinding

Think about wayfinding long before the development site and architecture have taken shape. Experiential graphic designers are the go-to people at this point. The following steps are edited from the SEDG blog post. They outline the process for working with designers to integrate wayfinding into new or existing space.

1. Kick off. A good designer will listen to the problems and challenges that a wayfinding systems needs to solve.

2. Strategize and plan. Designers think about how people move around and interact, anticipate needs and identify obstacles. They should also consider any regulations and restrictions to ensure designs are approved.

3. Concept and design. A good designer will have skills in type, colour, form, materials, lighting and more and present a variety of designs. They consider sightlines, obstructions, language and culture, physical disabilities and visual impairments.

4. Review and approve. This is the most important part of the process. A good designer packages the designs for approval and negotiates where necessary.

5. Bid for pricing. Allow up to three weeks for this step so mistakes aren’t made leading to bigger issues. Proposals should include samples, colours, materials, shop drawings and permits.

6. Fabricate and install. Fabrication and installation takes eight to twelve weeks. A good designer will work with fabricators and installers to ensure design intent is followed, down to the last sign type and location.

Community Wayfinding

Jon Sanford’s chapter, Design f or All Users explains that despite its potential, universal design has not been widely adopted as a strategy in promoting community wayfinding. The book, Community Wayfinding: Pathways to Understanding is published by Springer Link and individual chapters can be purchased. Or go to the ResearchGate site and request free access to the full chapter.

You can download the table of contents to see what else might be of interest.

From the abstract

In this chapter, the author describes not only what universal design is, but also what it is not: specialized designs to compensate for functional limitations.

Universal design, as articulated by a set of performance guidelines, describes how to promote usability and inclusivity—including community wayfinding—for everyone. The chapter addresses directions in research, policy, and practice necessary to promote universal design implementation.

Award winning wayfinding design

There are three wayfinding design articles in this post. First, is public transport systems where good wayfinding is essential for reducing travel stress. Community wayfinding is essential for orientation, and hospitals are another situation where people experience wayfinding stress. And wayfinding is so much more than signage.

Deborah Abidakun, won an RSA Student Design Award for her wayfinding system design. Being just below average height she found herself on tiptoe trying to understand 3D graphics. At night the lack of lighting made reading even more difficult. So Deborah started to wonder how others found these signs. This led her to carry out research around the existing pedestrian wayfinding system.

Deborah’s winning design was based on enhancing the Transport for London system. Find out more by going to the article – the illustration below has two more screens that help with the explanation. The title of the article is, Enabled by design: A way finding system that considers the disabled.

Hospital wayfinding

Healthcare environments are under the design microscope with a growing body of evidence to show how design is linked to well-being. The design project manager for the Seattle Children’s Hospital is Integrating Art and Wayfinding.

This short article outlines how the art planning team decided on the style of art. Patients, families, clinical and administrative staff. “Finding the right visual voice for patients whose ages range from infants to young adults, along with families and visitors is key”

Inclusive design: more than a checklist

Design is powerful. It connects us to the world around us and shapes our lives. Inclusive design shapes products and services in ways that are useable by everyone. It requires a shared understanding of population diversity. Whether it’s a building a webpage, a policy framework or a town park, it ensures we “leave no-one behind“. Inclusive design is more than a checklist.

A blog page from Automattic says, “Truly inclusive designs are never really finished, and becoming fluent in inclusive design takes more than a checklist. We all need a map when we start exploring any new world”. This is the introduction to a “guidance map” aimed at leading individuals and teams through the processes of creating inclusive thinking and practice.

Although focused on technology, some of the principles and processes can be applied in other design situations. For example, “Learn about your audiences; their motivations, needs, behaviors, challenges, pain points and goals”. The key headings in this article on Design.blog are:

- - Broadening perspectives and building empathy;
  - Bringing diversity into teams and processes; and
  - Building inclusion into designs.

The article explains each of the three steps in more detail. Some concepts such as colour contrast are well-known to designers. Less considered factors are providing cost-accessible options of designs, and designing for low bandwidth. Designs should be adaptable for longer life and empower clients to continue without more designer input. These ideas really show that client needs are at the centre of the design. Designing out “pain points” is essential for all users.

Design is a powerful tool and inclusive design has the “potential to unite heterogeneous cultures in shared understanding. To make products and experiences globally accessible.” Good design is inclusive design.

Universal design and affordability in housing

Housing policy people think you can’t have universal design and affordability in housing. However, the opposite is likely to be true. The national Building Ministers’ Meeting in April this year agreed to include Livable Housing Silver level in all new housing. But not all states agreed to call it up in their jurisdiction.

Victoria, Queensland, ACT, Tasmania and NT are right behind the changes to the National Construction Code, but NSW is not. Indeed, they informed advocates by letter that they have no intention of including silver level in NSW legislation. Their reasoning is that they believe they are doing enough already. By this, they mention some policies asking for a proportion of accessible dwellings in apartments. However, there is no evidence they are actually built, and if they were, there is no way of knowing where they are.

Head and shoulders pic of Kay Saville-Smith — Kay Saville-Smith

The other reason for not changing the NSW code is that the politicians believe it costs too much. Accessible housing continues to be perceived as a niche area. A few good points were made by Kay Saville-Smith at a roundtable after the 2014 Australian Universal Design Conference. Sadly, we are still no further forward and her words hold true today.

Universal design is affordable design

Here are Kay Saville-Smith’s five key points about universal design in housing and affordability:

“The usual argument is that universal design is consistently unaffordable (by which they mean more costly) than poor design because of the difficulties of retrofitting the existing environment and lack of economies of scale. But the reasons why universal design is seen as costly can add cost. Five points are interesting:

1. Most products are not designed but driven off existing tools, processes and organisational structures. To change these does require some investment (hump costs) but these are one off and should not be seen as an ongoing cost. Indeed, those changes can bring reduced costs in the long term through increased productivity etc.
2. The costs of poor design are externalised onto households, other sectors or hidden unmet need.
3. Comes out of an advocacy approach that pitches the needs of one group against another and treats universal design as special design etc.
4. Win-win solutions need to be built with the industry participants that are hungry for share not dominant players who have incentives to retain the status quo.
5. Universal design is different from design which is fashion based. The trick is to make universal design fashionable so no one would be seen dead without it.”

Her keynote presentation provides more information about affordability and why it is so hard to get traction with universal design in housing.

For more history on the Building Ministers’ Meeting and decisions to include Livable Housing Silver level in the NCC, go to the housing design policy section.

Author: Jane Bringolf

Housing and Indigenous disability: Lived experience

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Making Mosques Accessible

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