The benefits of holding the Olympic and Paralympic Games must be long lasting, and this aspect is key to being the winning bid to be the host city. So what kind of legacy can we expect from Brisbane 2032 Games? CUDA held a symposium to discuss the Games Legacy strategy which is titled, Elevate 2042.
The vision is to move to a more inclusive, sustainable and connected society with more opportunities for everyone. And to make the region better, sooner together through sport.
Elevate 2042, is the product of collective effort of the Games delivery partners. It is promoted as a guide to maintain a collective focus on society, economy, connectivity and environment.
The Games Legacy Strategy is not about benefits for a few, or ideas that have nothing to do with the Games. It is about making bigger things happen sooner for the benefit of as many communities as possible. The concept of universal design was mentioned once in the document and on the very last page.
The Olympic and Paralympic Games is a great opportunity to embed a universal design approach into all the work leading up to the event. This would drive the access and inclusion agenda for everyone in a coordinated way. The purpose of CUDA’s symposium was to find ways to embed universal design thinking into the implementation plan.
Symposium recommendations
Apanel of four speakers set the scene which fed into the workshop discussions with participants. Two key themes emerged from those discussions.
Embed universal design principles in all procurement processes including pre-procurement to develop appropriate scopes of works.
Embed co-design at the beginning of all decision-making processes at all levels and make the process mandatory.
Universal design is a unifying concept
Universal design is three things: an ethical principle for inclusion of diversity; a vision of an inclusive society; and a unifying approach to policy and perspectives. It’s this last point that is of greatest value to the implementation of the Games Legacy Strategy.
With so many government departments and stakeholders involved, an abstract concept such as inclusion can fall between the cracks. Taking universal design approach across the development of all activities keeps inclusion at the forefront in transport, housing, planning, employment, communications, services, and tourism to name a few.
The draft recommendationsare open for comment until 30 July. They cover active transport, planning and infrastructure, housing, tourism, and co-design.
Embedding a universal design approach at the concept stage of any undertaking using co-design methods, and continuing the concept through to completion, will add support to a sustainable and successful legacy for the Brisbane 2032 Games.
Queensland’s Walkability Improvement Tool is part of their healthy and active communities strategy. It’s about retrofitting neighbourhood enhancements – not an easy task. The key elements are connectivity, block lengths, footpaths, parks or open space, and one street tree every 15 metres.
The advice includes identifying the primary audience for the improvement. Examples are given such as schools, shopping precincts and public transport nodes. However, children don’t just go to schools and shoppers don’t just go to shops. The danger of focusing on a single audience is that others risk getting left out of the designs. The result is journeys not made.
Older people and people with disability live in all neighbourhoods which include school zones and shopping precincts. Therefore, “special” treatments are needed for connectivity for everyone across neighbourhoods. One missing kerb ramp, street crossing or footpath is enough to discourage walking.
The retrofitting challenge
Many Queenslanders are living in established communities which are unwalkable, with few footpaths, unconnected street layouts and few street trees to provide shade and shelter. People walk for health and wellbeing, relaxation and recreation, and as a transport option for short trips.
People are deterred from walking because of inadequate or no footpaths, safety concerns, insufficient shade, very long blocks.
Footpaths
The desktop analysis stresses the importance of footpaths but only on one side of the street in residential areas. Nevertheless, this will be an improvement in areas where no footpaths exist. Footpaths also need lighting, shade trees and kerb ramps, and to be clear of vegetation. A line of concrete is insufficient in itself to encourage walking.
Observations of pedestrian and vehicle counts are useful, but they do not measure pedestrians who use the car because the neighbourhood is not walkable or wheelable for them. It doesn’t measure those who stay home and get their goods delivered. Similarly surveys must have accessible questionnaires in different formats to capture the diverse experiences of pedestrians.
Images illustrate some of the difficulties in providing footpaths such as the location of stormwater drains, narrow verges, and large street trees. The Walkability Improvement Tool is a downloadable assessment tool.
Designs 4 Livingis a magazine by Todd Brickhouse in the US with a focus on home designs for people with disability and older adults. The latest issue covers a wide variety of design solutions. They include home lighting, bathroom and kitchen trends, home workplaces and cognitive and sensory solutions.
Lighting the home
As we get older our vision degrades and in many instances and higher levels of illumination become more important. However, it’s important to avoid glare and “pooling” of light. Indirect light sources such as recessed lighting under and over cabinets is good. LED lighting uses less power and lasts much longer.
Different scenarios for different rooms in the home are presented in the article along with a useful list of terms used for lighting and illumination. There is a link to a free guidebook to lighting the whole house.
Bathroom trends
Making a bathroom safe and accessible is just the beginning – why not make it look stylish too. That’s the content of the article by Mike Foti. While white tiles are still popular, light wood grains have gained popularity and come as tiles and panels. Flooring can provide the necessary visual contrast to the walls and fittings. Shower and bathroom treatments that don’t involve grout are a bonus. The article has more with links to useful solutions.
Cognitive and sensory solutions
Shelly Rosenberg is an interior designer with ADHD and her article is framed around 8 human senses. We all learned the five senses at school but we need to add Vestibular, Proprioception and Interoception. She begins with vision and the quality of light and level of visual ‘busyness’.
Smell is about air quality, fragrance, memory and mood. Building materials and furnishings can give off toxic gasses. Controlling moisture temperature and using air filters and purifiers are some of the solutions. Rosenberg goes through all 8 senses
Gen X and Baby Boomer needs
This article explores the divergent needs of Generation X and Baby Boomers as they age. Marketing professionals like to label different age groups, but the old labels for older adults don’t gel with Gen X. Indeed, why should older people wear a label at all? And terms such as Silver Tsunami present older people as a burden. An interesting discussion.
The Summer edition 2024 ofDesigns 4 Living also has items on pets, and workplaces.
The problem with economic models is that they count the things you can count and leave out things you can’t. And sometimes that’s what can happen with co-design methods – doing what you know and not what is possible. A group of researchers adapted the Doughnut Economics model to create the Futures Doughnut tool for co-design for complex settings.
Doughnut economics seeks to address inequities, poverty, and standard of living. It’s about meeting the needs of humans and the planet. A group of researchers have adapted this economic thinking in the context of co-design.
Using a participatory design process, 115 stakeholders explored the model to navigate socio-ethical challenges. The process fostered constructive dialogue, and explored values and boundaries. This is a good process for working in complex institutional systems where stakeholders have diverse perspectives and priorities.
The title of the paper is, Baking an Institutional Doughnut: A systemic design journey for diverse stakeholder engagement. While the context of the paper is a university setting, it sets a good example for other situations with the Futures Doughnut Tool.
Limits of co-design activities
Co-design activities are good for advocating for and helping to generate creativity. However, they are insufficient for complex systems design where continuity of consultation goes beyond design ideation.
Co-creation methods are difficult to compare by definition because they are context dependent. An adaptive and staged systemic design process requires significant time and buy-in from stakeholders. Without this commitment there is a risk of misunderstandings and therefore consensus on decisions.
Co-design is good for finding common ground with diverse vocabularies, disciplines and lived experience. However, it also needs the right tools and methods and the Futures Doughnut was developed with this in mind.
From the abstract
Doughnut Economics offers a compass for navigating the complexities of creating a safe and just space where humanity can flourish while respecting ecological boundaries. This pictorial reports on how the Doughnut Economics model can be applied as a tool for facilitating complex stakeholder engagement.
We present a visual framework and facilitation method for systemic and values-led thinking. The context is establishing a new interdisciplinary academic institution.
Using a participatory design process, 115 stakeholders from academic, research, and administrative backgrounds explored this model. The aim was to co-create an institutional compass to navigate the socio-ethical challenges of their professional practices.
From the US comes a disability inclusion toolkit that focuses on the inclusion of people with disability. It also includes people who are neurodivergent. It has resources, best practices and is informed by the perspectives of people living and working with disability.
This online resource is for both employers and employees written in an easy to read format including personal experiences. There are four main sections:
1. Assume you don’t know what disability looks like.
2. Embrace a customised approach to disability inclusion.
3. Disability inclusion needs to be a business priority.
4. Familiarise yourself with accessibility in education.
The Disability Inclusion Toolkit was produced by the Dallas Chamber of Commerce. The data, resources, and best practices are informed by the perspective of experts and people living and working with disability.
Diversity and inclusion: Can we co-design our work?
Employers are experimenting with managing the changing face of work and employee feedback is of course essential. So, will universal design principles and the practice of co-design come to the fore in designing work? Perhaps.
Most employees currently working in a hybrid model want it retained. Areport by McKinsey found this was the case across the board. They also found that marginalised groups wanted it more than others:
Employees with disabilities were 11 percent more likely to prefer a hybrid work model than employees without disabilities.
More than 70 percent of male and female respondents expressed strong preferences for hybrid work, but nonbinary employees were 14 percent more likely to prefer it.
LGBQ+ employees were 13 percent more likely to prefer hybrid work than their heterosexual peers.
However, the McKinsey report highlighted potential pitfalls:
Hybrid work has the potential to create an unequal playing field if not done correctly.
Companies need to prioritize the most critical inclusion practices: work-life support, team building, and mutual respect.
Marginalized groups are more likely to prefer a hybrid work model and would be more likely to leave if it was not available.
Hybrid good for inclusion
In their survey, 75 percent of all respondents said that they prefer a hybrid working model. Only 25 percent said they prefer to be full time on-site. An employee who might be hiding a disability, gender identity or sexual orientation can avoid declaring it. Concealing this information takes a toll on employee wellbeing and performance. Until workplaces are truly more inclusive hybrid works well for many groups.
Diversity, equity and inclusion are the current buzz words in the workplace, and it all starts with recruiting. So, how inclusive are job descriptions? Using gender inclusive language, meaning cisgender inclusive, now seems normal. Now we need to think about language for all marginalised groups. Grand Valley State University Libraries has an Inclusive Job Descriptions Toolkit to help.
The toolkit is focused on university recruitment, but the information can be used in other contexts. They use the acronym IDEA – Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access.
The first part of the toolkit outlines best practices and the second part provides an equity lens for reviewing the job descriptions. The appendices include additional language and job description templates.
The toolkit lists the components of a job description some of which are specific to the university context. However, all job descriptions should give an employee a clear guide to the role and what is expected of them. A job description answers the question “What does this role do?” The next section gives guidance on writing inclusive job descriptions.
Writing an inclusive job description
Inclusive language reduces the likelihood of applicants from self-selecting out. Biased language can occur unintentionally and can have a negative impact on recruitment efforts. For example, a job being suited to a recent graduate may signal a desire to avoid older workers.
The section on tips for writing job descriptions has many of the usual points for clear communication. For example: conciseness, simple gender inclusive language, and avoiding acronyms. Other tips are on phrasing such as moving from “excellent communication skills” to “ability to communicate clearly and effectively”.
The toolkit lists gender, race, and ableist coded words that most people wouldn’t consider as non-inclusive:
Racially Coded Words: Excellent English-language skills, clear-spoken, native English speaker, cultural fit, nice, polite, Latino/Latina, professionalism
Ableist-Coded Words: Energetic, athletic, able-bodied individual, talking with students, walking through the building
The section that follows gives examples of how to make changes to phrasing. The section on ableist phrasing could do with some improvements, but it gives the idea.
Equity lens for diversity and inclusion
Applying an equity lens is a reminder that an organisation cannot embody IDEA without reviewing and updating their job descriptions and recruitment practices.
“It is explicit in drawing attention to the inclusion of marginalized populations, typically communities of color, and can be adapted to focus on other communities. … An equity lens will not tell you what action to take. Rather, the lens helps you discuss and reflect on the equitableness of the action and decision-making process.”
The document can also be found on the Library Reports and Communication webpage. Grand Scholar Works is a service of the Grand Valley State University Libraries. Michigan USA.
The Future of the Office in Australia
Sourceable reports on the changing face of the office – the place where hybrid work is possible. The article has a real-estate focus but includes a nod to access and inclusion:
“… employers are facing rising pressure to address environmental, social, and governance issues in their offices and policies. Buildings that are inclusive and accessible for all workers have become more prominent in the industry, with popular features of new office buildings including prayer rooms and gender-neutral facilities.”
The City of Sydney has updated its strategy and action plan for walking in Sydney. It begins with a note on terminology. Walking covers people using any means to mobilise on a footpath other than a bicycle or an e-scooter. Children can continue to cycle on footpaths.
Because street and transport designers have traditionally left out mobility device users, other terms have crept into use such as ‘walking and wheeling’. Adding ‘wheeling’ is a reminder to designers to remember everyone and design universally. It is easy to forget this unless specific reminders appear regularly in policies and plans, not just as a note at the beginning.
The key to the walking strategy is the hierarchy of walking needs from Can I walk? to Do I want to walk? Wanting to walk is the aim if we are to be less reliant on cars. Making not just possible, but enjoyable and comfortable is essential. The hierarchy is shown below and is used to frame the City’s strategy and principles.
Raised pedestrian crossings are good for pedestrians and serve to reduce the speed of traffic. That is, as long as they are designed to access standards. Continuous footpath treatments create visually distinct pathways across side roads and driveways. They indicate that people walking have the right of way, not the vehicles.
A City for Walking Strategy and Action Plan: Continuing the Vision addresses street design, traffic calming and pedestrian amenity. Footpaths are essential, but there are other necessary features to encourage and support walking. Toilets, seating, wayfinding and lighting are important too.
Public toilets
The City of Sydney plans to install public toilets within 400m of any point within Central Sydney. Village centres, and major neighbourhood parks will also have toilets. The planned toilets are unisex wheelchair accessible.
Interior of the new automated public toilets showing wheelchair circulation space and transfer rails, wheelchair accessible sink with sensor operated taps and fold-up baby change table.
The strategy has interesting information in graphs and case studies. The speed limit change from 50 m/h to 40 km/h in the city centre continues to reduce crashes significantly.
Road space allocation is not fair
Some of Sydney’s busiest footpaths have as much traffic as some motorways. 85% of people are walking but only get 40% of the space.
And note, designs such as kerbless shared spaces are not good for everyone, especially people who are blind or have low vision.
Steinfeld and Maisel devised the 8 Goals of Universal Design in 2012 as a way of making the 7 Principles more practical. That was more than 10 years ago. The concepts of universal design are evolving so it’s time to take another look.
A group of five passionate universal design campaigners in Poland have a great page on their website with their version of the goals of universal design.
Everyone constantly interacts with the space around them and relies on their senses. Our senses and physical abilities change, affecting the way we perceive, use and interact with the environment around us.
Sight – what do we see?
Hearing – what do we hear?
Touch – what do we touch?
Cognition – What do we understand?
Movement – how do we move our body?
A group of five passionate universal design campaigners in Poland have a great page on their website with their version of the goals of universal design. You might have to activate Google translate to get the page in English.
8 Goals refined
Here are the slight tweaks to the wording in Magdalena Storozhenko-Polak’s version compared to the original.
Magdalena Version
Body adaptation: takes into account the different body sizes and abilities of users.
Comfort: reduces the effort needed to use the product or space.
Readability : ensures that the most important information is easy and accessible to everyone to understand.
Intuitive: makes project operation logical and easy to learn.
Well-being: promotes health and prevents disease and injury.
Social inclusion : ensures that all groups have the opportunity to use spaces and activities.
Personalization : gives users the ability to tailor the design to their individual needs and preferences.
Taking into account cultural diversity: designs solutions appropriate for a given cultural circle, respecting its values and socio-environmental context.
Original Version
Body fit: accommodating a wide range of body sizes and abilities
Comfort: keeping demands within desirable limits of body function and perception
Awareness: ensuring that critical information for use is easily perceived
Understanding: making methods of operation and use intuitive, clear and unambiguous.
Wellness: contributing to health promotion, avoidance of disease and protection from hazards.
Social integration: treating all groups with dignity and respect.
Personalization: incorporating opportunities for choice and the expression of individual preferences.
Cultural appropriateness: respecting and reinforcing cultural values and the social and environmental context of any design project.
(Steinfeld, Maisel, 2012)
Magdalena’s websiteexplains each of the goals in more detail with photographic examples. There is a lot of other useful information on this website in blog posts. Check for Google translate.
However the goals and principles are devised and written, they should be taken in context of co-design and co-creation processes with users. They are a guide, rather than a checklist for designers.
Adapting the goals
The Everyone Can Play guide is a good example of adapting the goals to suit the context of the project, in this case, playspaces.
The six guiding design principles are: Find, Fit, Choose, Join In, Thrive, and Belong
The panel session speakers gave participants plenty to think about at CUDA’s Brisbane Symposium focused on legacy planning for the 2032 Games. There were four topics of discussion: Housing, Transport, Tourism, and Local Government.
The aim of the symposium was to find ways to embed universal design thinking into the Implementation Plan for the Games Legacy Planning. Four speakers set the scene: Malcolm Middleton, Kevin Cocks, Melissa James and Rebecca Arnaud. You can access their biographies in the links below.
Thanks to live captioning every word was captured in a transcript. This gave plenty of material for the edited highlights which follow after the bios below.
Image shows the captioner in the foreground with the speaker panel in the background.
Malcolm Middleton, OAM, former Queensland Government Architect, addressed the topic of housing.
Kevin CocksAM, Department of Transport and Main Roads addressed the topic of transport.
Melissa James, Inclusive Tourism Australia addressed the topic of tourism.
Rebecca Arnaud, Brisbane City Council’s Manager, Legacy and Games Planning took a local government perspective.
Malcolm Middleton, OAM
Malcolm Middleton discussed the importance of good governance, because without it nothing gets done in government. So what is governance? It’s a mix of politics and management and trying to “influence different people at different times in different settings to do the right thing”.
Malcolm spoke about his role when Queensland was getting ready to adopt the Livable Housing Design Standard and how having the right person in the room at the right time made a difference to the outcome. His advice was that if you want something done, or to change, you have to be determined, political and plan the way to get governance in place.
Read more of what Malcolm had to say in the edited transcript about Queensland adopting the Livable Housing Standard and his thoughts on governance in government.
Kevin Cocks, AM
Kevin began with comments about the exclusion of people who are deemed inferior and the structural and institutional challenges posed by governments and their policies which continue this injustice. Governments have control of three major areas of our lives that are fundamental for citizens to build the platform for self-determination. They are transport, housing and education. These three areas have the power to include or exclude.
Kevin made the point that bringing about change when everyone wants business as usual is not limited to government. People revert to old behaviours and practices – the ones they are comfortable with. Working towards an inclusive society includes working towards an inclusive workforce – that’s part of change management.
Taking a universal design approach also means using co-design methods and Kevin explained TMR’s relationship with Queenslanders with Disability Network (QDN). TMR also worked with QUT to develop a universally designed AV people mover. TMR have developed an Access and Inclusion Strategy, and at its core is universal design. The outcome is to build an inclusive workplace and produce inclusive products, goods and services for staff and customers.
Read more of what Kevin had to say about his role at Transport and Main Roads and his thoughts on privilege and the exclusion of people deemed inferior.
Melissa James
Melissa began with the issue of disability not being an attractive proposition to tourism operators. She supported this comment by pointing out that advertisements very rarely show people with lived experience of disability. She added that even when disability is addressed by operators, their concept of ‘accessible’ is often misleading. That’s why her initial idea of having a website of accessible accommodation and attractions wasn’t going to work.
In her work as a consultant she found that operators didn’t think there was a ‘disability market’ to explore. However, when the Queensland Government offered funding, some people became interested. The Commonwealth Games provided opportunities for education and workshops to build capacity within the tourism industry. The outcome of course, is that if you make a place accessible for visitors, you make it accessible for locals.
It requires several things to get more accessible places and experiences: government funding and backing, education of operators, and building capacity. Some operators don’t know they have accessible features because they don’t know what accessibility is. Providing ongoing support to businesses to improve accessibility will help make it happen.
You can read more from Melissa’s edited transcript about her personal experiences.
Rebecca Arnaud
Rebecca’s background is in urban planning, and she emphasised the role of local government as the place where the action happens, albeit quietly. She spoke about her role as Manager of Legacy and Games Planning. She explained that the host city has to demonstrate that any new buildings or sports venues are needed for the community, not because of the Games.
Most events will be held in existing venues because new venues are not encouraged . However, this brings its own problems for accessibility because you don’t have a brand new venue to work with.
Image shows Rebecca Arnaud speaking with her words captured on the captioning screen.
Rebecca explained that the Games Legacy Plan, Elevate 2042, was devised by several stakeholders with their own interests. However, the next phase of Elevate 2042 is to pull together the first-generation implementation plan and there is an opportunity to contribute to this. Rebecca encouraged feedback and constructive ideas for the implementation plan.
The concept of universal design has evolved over the last 50 years, and so it should as we learn more about how to be inclusive. However, many authors continue to base their writings on outdated notions of universal design. So it’s refreshing to find an article on co-creating urban development that advances our thinking about the concept.
Nordic countries embraced a universal design policy for urban development at the turn of the century and continue to learn from their experiences. Universal design thinking has evolved to using co-design and co-creation methods in design processes. This the point at which Emil Erdtman takes up the ideas and develops them further.
Universal design is three things:
an ethical principle for inclusion of diversity
a vision of an inclusive society
a unifying approach to policy and perspectives
In Sweden universal design is a guiding principle for policies, procurement and living environments. While it is applied in local projects, little is known about local practice. Hence Erdtman’s research. His explains the differences between consultation, partnership and co-creation in the graphic below.
Consultation is a one-way facilitation process, partnership is a negotiating process between competing interests, and co-creation is equal contribution for innovation.
Erdtman describes the projects in his study and the methods he used which included conversations about participants’ understanding of universal design. The conversations allowed for critical discussions rather than “battles about words”.
Discussions about terminology are detrimental to the pursuit of inclusive practice so it was good to see the focus stayed on the concept itself. Nevertheless, universal design was only connected to impairment despite the intersectional nature of the concept. A focus on impairment hides a more general user perspective as social beings in urban life.
Co-creation at the local level
Erdtman found that universal design practice shows diversity and inspired new methods. However, changing municipal practice takes time. A concept like universal design does not replace routines of planning, negotiation and rational management.
Co-creative ways of collaborating is about integrating experiences from a diversity of people, not thinking in separate tracks. It’s about equal participation and responsibility. It is not about commenting on ready-made proposals or delivering experiences as information. Limiting accessibility as just for people with disability risks leaving out invisible needs of others.
Universal design must be contextualised
Universal design transcends conventional categories and fosters continuous improvement. It enriches urban development by integrating diverse user experiences. It must be continuously contextualised, and developed differently depending on the locality.
Universal design should inspire innovation beyond group interests, regulations and human categorisation. Otherwise it will be just another rationalistic planning model.
This chapter contributes to knowledge about the understanding, implementation and co-creation of universal design. Interviews and group discussions were conducted and participant observation was made in three urban development projects.
The understanding of universal design was multifaceted. It is an ethical principle for inclusion of diversity, a vision of an inclusive society, and a unifying of policy and perspectives. Participants emphasised flexibility, predictability and personalised support. They linked universal design to accessibility as a separate and target group with a focus on regulatory compliance.
In the local context universal design practice will be expressed in diverse ways. Collaboration between municipalities and local disability organisations is formal and established. Different conditions and expectations created tensions about roles and interpretation of disability experience.
Disability experience is information for facilitating processes and for negotiation outcomes. However, there were conditions for co-creation.
To plan, design and build with diversity in mind is a complex process. While goals such as inclusion, participation and social sustainability may be present in the vision for a future product, service or environment, studies show that the initial vision isn’t always realized in the end result. There are still far too many products, services and environments that are hard to access or use for parts of the population. In this text we focus on comparatively simple, lightweight, tools – “low hanging fruits”.
Such tools are already available, there are personas, context cards, but also checklists and guidelines. Inspired by the existing work, we have developed one deck of cards, intended to serve as thought support by visualizing population diversity. In order to obtain a similar effect in digital environments (egin digital twins and other 3D environments used in planning and development) we have also developed 3D models (vehicles, devices and humans) that can be put in the digital environment, and serve as a reminder to the users of the digital environment of population diversity.
In the ramp-up to the Brisbane 2032 Games, Paralympics Australia was fielding lots of calls from sporting organisations and venues. These organisations are keen to achieve higher standards of accessibility and inclusion. Paralympics Australia aims to increase access to sports opportunities, so it was time to devise a universal design guide to help.
The Universal Design Guide for creating inclusive sport in Australia is a valuable reference for sports representative bodies. It provides useful information for beginning the journey towards adopting inclusive practices.
It’s also good for many other organisations because the underpinning principles and processes are the same. There are good examples of this in the sections on practicing inclusivity and beginning the inclusion journey.
A diverse range of people working and competing in different sporting codes provided input to the guide. It addresses structural and attitudinal barriers to universal design and inclusion and comprises:
Definitions of accessibility, inclusivity and universal design
How to adopt an inclusive mindset and language
Motivating case studies
Focus activities for universal design
Practical guides for: hosting a universal design kick-off meeting, developing inclusive strategy, producing accessible documentation, and designing accessible inclusive digital experiences.
The guide is very practical with case studies and examples of meeting agenda and social media posts. It concludes with a list of leading organisations and other resources. Download a copy in Word from the Paralympics Australia website.
The authors used every care to use language that is accurate, inclusive, empowering and non-stigmatising. The document will be refined and updated as Paralympics Australia builds its activities to make Australian sport accessible and inclusive. Feedback welcomed.
The International Paralympic Committee also has an Accessibility Guide produced in 2020. It has a wider range of topics that cover the whole event including accommodation and transportation.
This study aimed to explore Tokyo 2020’s non-host cities leveraging the Paralympic Games for accessible tourism development. Following their successful bid, the Japanese government launched a national initiative to promote an inclusive society, extending beyond Tokyo to include other regions and achieving the social model of disability. In particular, this study examined why and how non-host cities leveraged para-sport events for accessible tourism development.
Design/methodology/approach
We conducted multiple case studies focusing on three non-host cities that engaged in the national initiative from Tokyo 2020. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with city employees from the authorities in October 2019 and the municipal council meeting minutes mentioning the initiative.
Findings
Thematic analysis identified contexts, strategic objectives, resources and means comprising the leveraging processes, differing from the previously suggested leveraging process. Notably, non-host cities embarked on leveraging when they realized alignment between their existing policies and the national initiative. Contrary to assumptions, our findings suggest that sport event leveraging does not always require pre-existing resources. This study also revealed the transfer of various resources (e.g. human, financial, social, image of the event) during the process. Additionally, non-host cities prioritize physical accessibility and a barrier-free mindset for accessible tourism development, diverging from typical sport event impacts on local tourism.
Originality/value
This research provides insights and lessons from Tokyo 2020, guiding future para-sport events. Focusing on the pre-event phase, our data not only enhances research quality by minimizing interviewee recall bias but also contributes to a deeper understanding of ongoing leveraging efforts.
