Author: Jane Bringolf

Minimum access standards and myths

A flight of steps with handrails and an adjoining ramp lead to a public building. Minimum access standards for the built environment do not guarantee accessibility. Unfortunately, we still have designers who aren’t interested in best practice, only in ticking the compliance box. It also means that access is a last thought and remedies, such as ramps, are tacked onto the “grand design”. But universal design should be the grand design if we want equitable and dignified use by all. 

The Access to Premises Standard of 2011 has improved accessibility to new buildings, but it is not the total answer. They only go part way in creating inclusive environments. An article in Sourceable addresses some of the issues and the myths that remain within the property industry. 

The myths

Here are some of the myths about minimum access standards explained in detail in the article:

      1. Access is the same as universal design.
      2. Universal design in more expensive than access.
      3. The Australian Standard for Access considers all people with disability.
      4. The dimensions in the Australian Standard provide independent access for everyone.
      5. Minimum compliance guarantees all people with disability can use everything in a building.
      6. Access consultants know everything about access, disability and universal design.

The article concludes, “If we allow ourselves to be constrained by the minimum we will never aspire to the maximum. The legacy will be mediocrity.”  The title of the article is Minimum Compliance Means Missed Opportunities and Mediocrity. 

 

Queensland Inclusive Tourism Guide

Front cover of the Queensland Inclusive Tourism Guide showing a man in a red shirt with his arms outstretched.The introduction to the Queensland Government’s guide, Inclusive Tourism: Making your business more accessible and inclusive, begins, “This guide has been developed primarily for tourism operators, to help them:

    • increase their knowledge about the market for accessible tourism
    • develop strategies to improve the accessibility of their operation to appeal to a wider range of visitors of all abilities and ages
    • understand their legal obligations in relation to inclusive and accessible tourism.

The guide also includes information to assist people with disability in planning a holiday. Local government can use this guide to: support and promote inclusive tourism across businesses, festivals, events and public spaces; and to incorporate inclusive and accessible design into their design codes and planning guidelines. 

Download the 2017 Inclusive Tourism Guide from the link on the Queensland Government website.

See also the 2017 UTS Inclusive Tourism publication explaining the economics of inclusive tourism.

Dementia-friendly tourism: a guide

An older couple stand on a railway platform. A row of train carriages is in the background.Making your accommodation, business or tourist attraction dementia-friendly is not difficult. It just takes a bit of extra thought. Once you get the idea of what sorts of things matter, it becomes easy to do.

A guide from the Visit England project covers these topics so business can understand and prepare for people with dementia, and their families. It’s easy to read with really simple things to do that will help, such as a simple bedside clock, avoiding shiny reflective surfaces, and wild bold patterns for bed covers and carpets. Case studies highlight the value of these small but important details. 30 pages including lots of pictures. The guide includes sections on:

Why become dementia friendly
What is dementia?
Living well with dementia
Information
People
Place
What can I do next?

Dementia inclusive tourism

A literature review examined how well tourism industries are recognising neurodiverse audiences. Including people living with dementia expands the customer base and contributes to customer wellbeing. 

People living with dementia, including carers, have leisure lives but there are many barriers to activities. The review is extensive and frames recommendations for:

    • travel and holidays,
    • taking trips in the car
    • transport terminals and interchanges
    • air travel
    • Cruising
    • Hospitality and accommodation

The title of the 2024 review is, Dementia as a global challenge: Progress and prospects for creating more dementia-inclusive tourism industries. 

From the abstract

Global Grand Challenges (GCs) have received only a limited attention within the tourism literature. This Progress paper examines one such GC – dementia and the contribution that tourism research can make to helping people live well with dementia.

Using the concept of the visitor journey and the social model of disability, the paper reviews progress towards creating a more dementia-inclusive society. Using the auspices of tourism research, we review the contributions to date and where the interconnections with dementia and tourism exist.

The review draws from a wide interdisciplinary framework including health, medicine, travel medicine and leisure. We argue for a greater use of transdisciplinary approaches to address GCs.

Slips, Trips and Falls: More can be done

A brown shoe is about to step on a banana skin.How do we know if a flooring surface is slip resistant? And is it resistant in different situations? Slips, trips and falls account for a significant proportion of hospital stays. But we seem to accept this as inevitable. Lots of energy goes into educating older people and others to avoid falls, but the issue is much broader. A group of passionate people think we can improve the situation by developing and testing floor surfaces that minimise the risks. This diverse group came together in a conference earlier this year.

The Slips,Trips and Falls international conference brought together a diverse group of professionals all keen to prevent accidents. So they had everything from technical specifications to footwear. The proceedings have five main sections which are worth a browse:

– Design and technical standards in architectural design; 
– Issues of slip resistance measurement;
– Ergonomics, rehabilitation, footwear and innovative products;
– Analysing accidents and the causes of falls; and
– Biomechanics, human behaviour and ageing.

A yellow A frame sign indicating a safety hazard of a wet floor.

It seems that Spain is ahead of the pack when it comes to testing and standards development. They demand a high level of compliance for slip resistance in the built environment. That transfers to Spanish flooring products. That means any flooring products sourced from Spain have been thoroughly tested.

Much of this conference is technical, but the bottom line is that we could prevent many falls and hospital stays if we had the same emphasis on ensuring products had good slip resistant properties. 

Richard Bowman’s paper is also available on ResearchGate. 

The slippery case of slip resistance

A graph showing slip resistance gradings.Richard Bowman’s recent publication challenges conventional methods of testing tiles for slip resistance. Testing is mostly done in laboratories and the results are used for setting Standards for slip resistance.

In real environments, speed of walking, inclines, changes in weather, and cleaning materials all have an effect on the slip resistance of tiled surfaces. Bowman argues that these are not always taken into consideration. While the paper is very technical, it is essential reading for anyone involved in access compliance and all round safety for everyone.

The title of his paper is, Can we develop slip resistance metrics that ensure appropriate tile selection?  Read to the end to see what he has to say about two popular Australian access guides that cover slip resistance.

Richard Bowman is a ceramic engineer, who spent 30 years working as a principal research scientist at CSIRO – Australia’s national scientific research organisation. Richard also presented a paper at the 2014 Australian Universal Design Conference. A follow up paper was presented at the Slips, Trips and Falls Conference in Madrid, 2020.

From the abstract:

This paper reviews several aspects of the state of the art of slip resistance testing in the context of trying to identify an ISO testing procedure that would provide suitable metrics for optimising appropriate tile selection. While existing test methods might be represented as being fit for purpose, there are several areas of test protocols that could and should be significantly improved. …While the existing paradigm of solely assessing the ex-factory slip resistance of tiles is flawed and contrary to sensible regulatory measures, new data is required to establish credible evidence-based practicable standards.

 

Neighbourhoods for every age

Shows the street of a new housing development with driveways for cars but no footpath for peopleDesigning universally requires the involvement of users of all ages and abilities in the design development stage. Inviting them to comment at a later stage assumes only cosmetic changes are needed to the “grand design”. But inclusive design begins right at the stage of design “thought bubbles”. 

Using the experiences of children and older adults, two case studies illustrate the need to utilise universal design principles in neighbourhood planning and design. The authors discuss how universal design is the bridging concept for joined up thinking for greater liveability for all ages. However, entrenched practices based on compliance leave no space for the application of voluntary guidelines whether for one age group or another.

Planning neighbourhoods for all ages and abilities: A multi-generational perspective, is an academic paper. It has several photographs illustrating the findings and the points made in the case studies. 

Abstract: Taking a more integrated approach to planning our neighbourhoods for the continuum of inhabitants’ ages and abilities makes sense given our current and future population composition. Seldom are the built environment requirements of diverse groups (e.g. children, seniors, and people with disability) synthesised, resulting in often unfriendly and exclusionary neighbourhoods. This often means people experience barriers or restriction on their freedom to move about and interact within their neighbourhood. Applying universal design to neighbourhoods may provide a bridging link. By presenting two cases from South-East Queensland (SEQ), Australia, through the lenses of different ages and abilities – older children with physical disabilities and their families (Stafford 2013, 2014) and seniors (Baldwin et al. 2012), we intend to increase recognition of users’ needs and stimulate the translation of knowledge to the practice of planning inclusive neighbourhoods.

 

Finding Your Way: Learning from users

A university campus map showing buildings juxtaposed to each other with no semblance of order.University campuses are some of the most confusing places to visit. There seems no sense of order with buildings set up higgledy-piggledy fashion. Finding you way takes more than a campus map. Given that most campuses have buildings added as the years go by, creating a good wayfinding system is always going to be a problem. However, finding you way by learning from users is a good start.

Wayfinding around an Oslo university is the subject of an interesting study. There were four main parts to the user-centred design: understanding, envisionment, design, and evaluation. Interviewing users and scenario testing helped with understanding. Envisioning entailed testing different media to find the most suitable ways to communicate information. The design phase Oslo Met University showing an old brick facade.translated the information into prototypes. The evaluation phase used two types of user testing.

The researchers conclude it was a great learning experience for them. It showed how important it is to include users in the design process. The title of the article is, User-Centred Design for a Not Straightforward University Wayfinding.

Abstract

OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University receives thousands of students and visitors annually. Its main campus consists of many buildings in which students, staff and visitors navigate. Unfortunately, navigating around the campus can be challenging, as the existing wayfinding system is complex and not straightforward. This paper presents a problem-based approach to address the wayfinding challenges around the campus.

A group of European Project Semester students followed a user-centred design approach to involve participants throughout the four main phases of the study—understanding, envisionment, design and evaluation. Interviews and scenario-based user testing were conducted to identify the underlying problems. The findings indicated that the numbering system for rooms was inconsistent, and the signage was not clear, visible and coherent for all the buildings on the campus.

Using graphic design principles and wayfinding guidelines, a new consistent room numbering, a signage system and a mobile navigation app were proposed, developed and evaluated. The results showed that the new wayfinding system was clear and easy to understand, and it can be applied in all buildings. We observed a shorter time spent navigating to a specific room, and no mistakes was made. The app was found to be a useful and helpful tool for wayfinding. As a result of this study, the authors highlight the importance of involving users throughout the entire research process, which is our most significant learning experience as a group.

The campus map in the top picture is the Parramatta South campus of Western Sydney University. It has several heritage buildings going back to the time of early settlement. Many new buildings continue to be added.

Sea Change or Urban Uplift?

long view of a Perth city mall with shops and cafes under awnings and trees for shade. Tall buildings are in the backgroundWhile some retirees will seek a sea change to resort-style living, others want to stay connected to their families and established neighbourhoods. Some might even be thinking about planning renovations to make staying put easier. A place in the country sounds ideal, but is it the right choice?

An article in Aged Care Insite critiques the age-restricted model of villages. It asks if this is a sustainable model into the future. The article was written in 2018 and shows foresight given today’s issues with aged care. Many of the current issues are discussed and the author, Susan Mathews questions if this is the right way forward. 

Mathews proposes alternatives, one of which is flexibility of design across the housing market so that people can receive care at home when it is needed. This fits with the principles of universal design as outlined in the Livable Housing Design Guidelines at Gold level. Other key points are inter-generational interaction, connectivity, inclusion, and proximity to conveniences. A good article  from an architect’s perspective. The title of the article is Aged Care in the urban context: what’s missing?  

Colour contrast checkers for web

The colours of the rainbow arranged as a wheel to show colour contrast.Almost anyone can create a website or add content these days. It doesn’t have to be an IT specialist. One the most basic accessibility features is colour contrast. No matter what level of vision we have, we all need contrast. But how much contrast is enough? And what about colour combinations?

Vision Australia has a colour contrast analyser and instructions on how to use it. The analyser is a tool for checking foreground and background combinations. It also has a function to simulate certain vision conditions such as colour blindness. There is more information on their webpage. The contrast information is also useful for printed material.

For the more tech people, the Axess Lab website has links to seven free tools that help you measure color contrasts that meet the contrast requirements in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). With almost everything in life being linked to the internet, it is important to make sure sites are fully accessible. Colour contrast is important for many with low vision, but accessibility does not have to equal boring. By going to the website you can see more on each of these seven free tools: 

Universally Designed Conferences

People sitting either side of an aisle listening to a speaker.Most conference organisers target a workforce audience and they assume people with disability don’t have jobs. If you don’t see someone at a conference with an obvious disability it’s easy to assume they aren’t around. If the conference is not inclusive, they won’t come. 

A new article on universal design and accessible conferences joins the dots between all the aspects of a conference. It needs a holistic approach because it is much more than ensuring there is an accessible toilet. The article applies the principles of universal design as a way of thinking about access and inclusion. It covers:

      • online booking
      • transport and parking
      • registration
      • seating
      • catering
      • wayfinding
      • accommodation
      • communication aids
      • access to the podium. 

From the abstract

The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) mandates the inclusion of individuals with disabilities to a broad range of facilities and public buildings. One overlooked area is access to conferences. Conferences are held in a range of buildings, including purpose-built venues, hotels, and stadia.

Often, the focus is on access for people with mobility limitations, but access for people with other disabilities, such as vision or hearing loss, or mental ill-health, can be overlooked. It makes sound business sense, as well as a sense of social justice, to ensure more people can access conferences.

A literature review highlights key considerations to make conferences more accessible to a broad range of people with disability. A theoretical framework of universal design is proposed to support the ideas.

A holistic approach is taken including online booking, transport, and parking, since, without these being accessible, the event becomes inaccessible. Other aspects considered include registration, seating, restrooms, catering, and communication aids. 

Making conferences more accessible

A student lab showing a man with a cochlear implant talking to a womanAn academic paper titled Making Academia More Accessible chooses to start the topic with accessible conferences and events. A case study is used to to demonstrate how it is possible to overcome “Ableism in Academia”. An interesting and easy read for anyone staging events of any size.

Each of the features are listed including; quiet room, catering, live captioning, sign language, PowerPoint presentations, staging, microphone use, ticketing and toilets. The concluding reflections discuss the feedback they received and the ongoing impact of this work.

The paper also discusses how academia has to consider the diversity of its workforce as well as its student body and others. The case study comes from University College London and University of Kent. There is a link to a one page summary of the strategies at the end of the article.

Extra costs involved, especially live captioning and signing, but there was no extra budget assigned – it was achieved by volunteer effort and sponsorship. The argument for the economic value of inclusion is therefore lost and will continue to be lost until it is realised the extra cost is actually an investment. It is not ‘lost’ money.

Conference attendance from a user perspective

picture of a large audience watching a presentation.When academics organise a conference on health and wellbeing, the people being discussed are likely to be in the audience and on the speaking program. But how many academic conference organisers think about this? Not many it seems.

Sarah Gordon has written a very readable article about her experience as a conference speaker, attendee and user of the health system. Conferences with disability related content are generally considerate of the “nothing about us without us” approach. But little consideration is given to mental health. 

While the focus is on mental health in this paper, the comments can be applied more generally. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability is referenced throughout and this makes it a long read. Conferences are part of the right to life-long learning and education, and the right to give and receive information. The application of universal design principles are discussed as a way to create greater inclusion for conferences. The paper is titled, What makes a ‘good’ conference from a service user perspective? by Sarah Gordon and Kris Gledhill, in the International Journal of Mental Health and Capacity Law (2017).

Universal design and accessible meetings

People are seated an round conference tables listening to a speaker.Even conferences about inclusion, universal design and accessibility can fail to meet the first requirement of their own content. That is, to make the conference and venue accessible and inclusive.

New research aims to promote awareness among meeting organisers and the conference supplier companies about the need to remove barriers to meetings and conventions. This includes the whole issue of destinations and visitor experience for the surrounding area.

BestCities Global Alliance produced the report, Universal Accessibility in Meetings. 12 cities are featured in case studies, including Melbourne, with a 15 point checklist for meeting organisers. Final step will be to get presenters to universally design their PowerPoint presentations.  

Intuitive to use: Does it work as a design guide?

Four buttons are lined up one above the other. They are used to open and close the door. There are lots of written instructions.The seven classic principles of universal design were developed in the 1990s and are still applied in many contexts. The concept of universal design continues to evolve. Today, the concept is better understood as a way of thinking about inclusion throughout the design process. Newcomers to the concept of universal design often try to apply the principles literally rather than as a guide for design thinking. Maybe it is time for a product recall?

The classic principles are not themselves intuitive to use. And herein lies the problem. Consequently, Steinfeld and Maisel devised the 8 Goals of Universal Design in 2012. The 8th Goal is about cultural inclusion. These goals are easier to apply and more suited to adaptation to different design disciplines. However, they have yet to receive the same attention as the classic principles.

Not surprisingly, there have been many academic papers critiquing the seven principles. Academics are now arguing nuances between universal design and intuitive design, or applying principles in a tick-box fashion. One such paper is focused on the third principle, simple and intuitive to use.

The author concludes that as a design principle it doesn’t work because it doesn’t say how it is done, but is useful as a reminder to think about a broad range of users. It is worth noting that the researcher did not consult with users during the design. Rather, an example from an existing design was used to critique the principle of intuitive to use. 

The author reports on the application of an automatic locking system on a toilet door on a new train in Norway. The trains were designed with the principles of universal design. This includes an electronic door locking system for the toilet. However, this system has many passengers confused in spite of written instructions and icons. Consequently passengers have found themselves in embarrassing situations due to the door not being locked.

Clearly there is something wrong with the design for everyone. It fails the test of intuitive to use. But is this a problem with the principle, or the designers who failed to properly test the design? Did following the principles give unfounded comfort to the designer such that no product testing was used?

The title of the article is, Intuitive use in design guidelines: Can intuitive use be applied to a product?   An article in Medium has picked up the story and concludes it is bad design. It adds the critical point that if you need lots of instructions on how to use something then it is definitely not intuitive.

Abstract

Several design guidelines recommend to design for intuitive use and marketing often advertises products as intuitive in use – but what does it mean for a design to be intuitive? One design guideline that embraces intuitive use is described by the principles of universal design. The third principle says that the design should strive for ‘Simple and intuitive use’ regardless of experience and cognitive abilities.

This article will examine the concept of intuitive use and address the case of an automatic toilet door system that, even though universally designed, seems to be confusing to many users. From the literature, the focus will lie on the concepts of affordance and familiarity, due to its relation to intuition.

The case is further used to evaluate these concepts and to see if principle three of universal design is possible to fulfill. The article concludes that the principle is a good reminder of an important concept; however, the design process needs supplements from other design literature to fulfill the principle. 

Mobility as a Service

Graphic of three smart phone screens showing various displays of journey planning.Transportation, whether on the footpath, by bus, train or plane, is not an end in itself. It’s what it allows us to do. The whole journey – the daily commute or the overseas flight, usually takes some joined up thinking. Making our journeys seamless is one of the aims of Mobility as a Service or MaaS. 

MaaS is about integrating various forms of transport services into a single mobility service that is accessible on demand. In other words, an App. But for this to work, a few things have to change. Sharing is part of it. The added benefit is that it offers a real chance to lower our carbon emissions.

Part of the front cover of the AARP discussion paper.If we want to move away from privately owned cars the alternatives have to be as good or better. In the context of autonomous vehicles the idea of MaaS is gaining ground. MaaS combines mobility services from public transport, taxis, car rental and car and bicycle sharing under one platform on a smart phone. It also has the capacity for buy tickets and plan journeys. 

A recent article from The University of Sydney Business School discusses whether MaaS will remain a niche service or whether it can grow into something bigger. Having different levels of service at a range of prices is part of the solution. The biggest hurdle to overcome will be built-in prejudices about using this type of service. But will MaaS be accessible and usable by everyone? There is little mentioned about this in any of the articles.

Accessibility is not just about wheelchair access. People who become anxious in crowded places would benefit from knowing when train carriages are full, for example. But all parts of a service with different operators relies on every one of them being inclusive and accessible. AARP in the United States has a comprehensive look at MaaS in their report, Universal Mobility as a Service. 

While there is much going on in this space, there is still a lot to work out to make sure inclusion and accessibility is seamless for MaaS to work for everyone. 

Medium online magazine provides a very good overview of MaaS. It explains the different steps we need to take to integrate our transport services.