Author: Jane Bringolf

Older people value outdoor spaces

Stockholm from the water showing classic Scandinavian heritage buildings.What makes a city or community age-friendly? The World Health Organization has researched this and produced a comprehensive guide. But sometimes it pays to drill down to the detail at a more local level. Older adults’ perceptions of public spaces could be different to younger people. A research paper from Stockholm looked at green spaces, transport infrastructure and urban development and growth. The methods included visual methods and focus groups. The title of the paper is Promoting ‘Age-Friendly’ Cities: Assessing Elderly Perceptions of Public Spaces.  

The report concludes that respondents gave a high degree of importance to green spaces, features that promote continuity and connection to local histories. Spaces that encourage social interaction were also important. Loss of identity or character of buildings, as well as being inaccessible and poorly lit, added to feelings of discomfort.

Editor’s comment: The speed of, and need for, urban growth must include population ageing in its plans. Dismissing the feelings of older people as being “out of touch” or “not liking change” can have unintended consequences.

Picture by Maria Michelle.

Underground movement and wayfinding

Station in Singapore showing complexity of design with escalators and shiny surfaces.
Underground train station

A complex underground interchange station is a good subject for studying wayfinding. Legibility of the environment is more than just signage. When going underground people are more likely to become disorientated. So underground movement and wayfinding is a special area of work.

In a short paper, the researchers from Singapore focus on different materials used to see what difference they make. They looked mainly at colour contrast and glare from lighting. Legibility of the environment helps people who cannot read signs as well as helping to quickly orientate people who can. The article looks to be a translation to English but the content is understandable.

Abstract

Getting lost and disoriented due to the lack of legibility of the space are common problems found in underground stations. Wayfinding inside underground stations is often thought as being solely supported by the presence of signage and directory maps as the tools that help users to understand their orientation and route better. However, the influence of materials on wayfinding in underground stations is often overlooked. Hence this paper presents a comprehensive examination of literature studies and an analysis on Dhoby Ghaut Station in Singapore as case studies. This station serves three interchange MRT lines and complex routes, which renders wayfinding issues even more urgent.

The goal of this paper is to examine the potential of contrasting the material application for effective wayfinding inside the underground station. To identify aspects regarding the impact of selection and placement of materials applied (on floors, walls, and ceilings of underground stations), literature and case study are carried out. The results indicate that the materials used in underground station influences wayfinding in varying degrees.

The title of the paper is, Influence of material application to wayfinding issue in underground station design.  

 

Accessible home design

Front cover of the UD for houses guideline.Lifemark and BRANZ, the building research organisation in New Zealand, have produced a guideline titled Universal Design for Houses. The drawings and design ideas are based on accessible home design for wheelchair users. This is useful for understanding circulation space that’s good for wheelchair users and also good for everyone. However, not everything good for wheelchair users is good for everyone – so not exactly universal design.

The guide is concise and has lots of graphs to illustrate design ideas. Topics include what’s legally required, getting in and out of the home, wet areas, kitchens, hardware and lifts in dwellings. 

For more universal application in all homes, see the Livable Housing Design Guidelines. 

Editor’s comment: Translating the term universal design into designs for wheelchair users is a common error. But if you need to design for a generic wheelchair user, this is a good guide. 

Be safe at home

carpeted stairway in a homeSafety, slips, trips and falls are the topic of a Lifemark article, Better Design, Safer Homes,. It points out how many people fall and injure themselves at home. They also cut and burn themselves badly enough to need hospital treatment. How could such injuries be avoided so that people are sate at home? The article on has tips for stairs, bathrooms, kitchens, and entrances.

The article concludes, “A safer home benefits all occupants (and visitors), not just older people. Children, in particular will benefit from a design that recognises and addresses risk areas and by doing so creates a more liveable space for everyone”. Lifemark is based in New Zealand.

Step this way with no step

A grey tiled porch leads seamlessly into the home without any change in level.There’s lots of myths and worries about universal design features in homes. The no-step entrance is one of them. A covered entrance, which is great in itself, will keep away the rain and it’s also shade in the summer. A slight grade away from the entrance should deal with the rest. In fact, that is also good for all homes. And it’s easy to do when the home is first built. But people ask why have a no-step entrance when you don’t need it?

It’s based on the assumption that only wheelchair users need it. Think again. A new home means furniture deliveries. Perhaps a new baby on the way – yes, that’s the stroller or pram. Coming home with bags of shopping or a shopping trolley. And let’s not forget the teenager with a broken leg, or grandma who uses a wheelie walker. A no-step entry means everyone can visit and take part in family life. So it’s not just about now – it’s also about the future.

When it comes to cost, if it did cost a bit extra, how much would it be worth to you? The value of not going to institutional care sooner than you need to? The value of having a close family member come to your Christmas dinner? And what about the costly modifications you might need down the track. 

The Universal Design Project based in UK has a podcast and transcript that discusses this subject in more detail with a case study. 

Level entry to the alfresco area of a home showing tables and chairs on the tiled alfresco floor.

It’s also good to consider access to the patio or alfresco so that everyone can enjoy the family gathering. 

The 2022 edition of the National Construction Code now has the Livable Housing Design Standard which will be mandatory in October 2023.

 

Web designers are diverse too

Part of a computer screen showing code.The diversity of users is often discussed in relation to universal design and accessibility. But what about the diversity of web designers and their preferences? A research team in Norway checked this out with software designers and found there are “significant differences in team members’ preferences, particularly for those with different roles”. So, software teams should not choose a single method for all team members when it comes to creating accessible web designs. 

The research report covers an evaluation of methods preferred by developers and those testing for different impairments. Developers preferred more technical methods and personas. Testers who use the WCAG* walk-through regularly did not rate this method highly, perhaps because they find it tiresome. This indicates a need for a different method to be developed.

The title of the paper is What Methods Software Teams Prefer When Testing Web Accessibility, by Bai, Stray & Mork.

*WCAG is the World Content Accessibility Guidelines which are international standards published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Editor’s Note: It is likely that this line of questioning applies to other design fields too.

 

Best and least accessible cities for tourists

A scene of a medieval part of Luxembourg showing a town square with old building surrounding it.While airlines and airports are making a big effort to be more accessible, the same cannot be said for their tourist destinations. An article on ThiisCo website reports on a new study that has evaluated Europe’s capital cities for accessibility.  Luxembourg takes top spot and Chisinau, Moldova is ranked bottom with four others.  London came in 11th place.  It would be interesting to have the same study done in Australia. The full list and more detail is in the article, Europe’s most and least accessible capital cities ranked for disabled travellers.  Here is the information on Luxembourg:

“The research highlights that the most accessible city in Europe is Luxembourg, with 18.56 percent accessible accommodation available, 33.33 percent accessible attractions, a fully accessible airport, an Access City award and an ongoing council campaign for accessibility.

The small European city had won third prize at the Access City Award 2018 after it actively raised awareness of various disabilities to reduce the stigma associated with them and coined the term “specific needs” to reframe the way people discuss disabilities.

In addition, the city overhauled its public transport system to improve accessibility for all residents and visitors.  

Co-design with older adults

A creative workshop scene. A woman is holding a pair of scissors, another is holding a pen over paper. Co-design with older adults.Finding out what older adults might want and need in their daily living experiences takes more than just asking them, especially if they have a cognitive impairment. A recent study found that using creative methods, such as drawing and creating models, older people can express their needs in a tactile format. This also creates rapport with designers who can then devise better mobility, dining and leisure activities. This method is enjoyable for all participants.

The title of the article is, Participatory Design with Older Adults: Exploring the Latent Needs of Young-Old and Middle-Old in Daily Living Using a Universal Design Approach. You will need institutional access for a free read from SpringerLink.

Or ask for a free read through ResearchGate.

From the abstract:

Population ageing will continue to accelerate due to continuing decline in fertility and improvement in survival in major diseases. People who are experiencing cognitive or physical impairment, they often feel alone and experience different degrees of social loneliness.

This paper discusses co-design experiences with various stakeholders to explore latent needs of older persons in their daily living using a universal design approach. Through iterative use of creative methods, freehand sketching and physical models, older adults express their needs in a more accurate, tactile format.

Findings reveal that commonality of interest among older persons are important in building rapport among other participants. It also helps designers develop designs related to health care, mobility, dining and leisure activities.

Older adults and co-design

Close up of an older man and woman with their heads together dancing. He is wearing a hat and cravat, and she is wearing a red flower in her hair. They look loving.Older adults want the same designs as anyone else. Too often older people are gathered together under the umbrella of “the elderly”. This term assumes everyone is the same. It’s applied to people as young as 60 or 65 and every age after that. We can debate the terms of “older” and “elderly” but in the end, we are talking about people and design.

An article in Design Week challenges assumptions about older people and design. It reports on a study involving older people in design projects. They found older people “want what we want”. The ‘we’ in this context is young designers. A key point is that people can live independently for longer if things are designed around their needs. In the end, age isn’t relevant. But designing inclusively is. That’s why devices designed specifically for older people are bought but often abandoned. 

The title of the article is, Why age is often the “least relevant thing” when co-designing with the elderly.  It’s an easy read magazine article with good points for designers.

Caroma designs with people

Two researchers are creating the walls for a bathroom in the university lab.Caroma – the bathroom people, and University of New South Wales got together to do some hands-on research on bathroom fittings with  a group of older people. The resulting report covers the collaborative research methods as well as the attitudes and feelings of older people towards assistive fittings and designs. The title of the Caroma report is Ageing Joyfully. 

Older people feel stigmatised by “special” designs. Some fittings, such as a small grab rail, could be included as standard in all bathrooms therefore avoiding the stigma. Then we would have safer bathrooms for all (universal design). 

Here is a quote from the report that shows how stigma prevents some people from adapting their homes: “One member of a co-design group remembered the time her husband was prescribed grab rails “The shudders went through, it has come to this!” However, after having the rails for a long time she found herself using them more and more, said she wouldn’t be without them and thought they would benefit everyone. ‘If it were standard it would be normal’ and so would have no stigma of being associated only with the frail elderly.”

The report offers advice for designers, “For designers, working collaboratively with older people provides a rapid feedback on assumptions and design proposals. Older people have at least as varied aesthetic preferences as any other cohort, and they have a powerful connection between home and identity.”

Front cover of Caroma Ageing Joyfully ReportEditor’s note: It is a pity the front cover picture is a stock item showing a young person in a carer uniform semi-embracing an older woman in a wheelchair. As we know, this is not indicative of the breadth of the older population. It was probably chosen by the designer contracted to layout the document.

 

United Nations Inclusion Strategy

United Nations Building in New YorkThe United Nations is planning to actively include people with disability at all levels of their operations. It’s one thing to have a Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability, but not a good look if the UN itself isn’t leading by example.

UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, said, “Realizing the rights of persons with disabilities is a matter of justice as well as a common-sense investment in our common future”, but “we have a long way to go in changing mindsets, laws and policies to ensure these rights”.   Global Accessibility News has more detail on this story. Better late than never.

What is “reasonableness’ in the concept of reasonable accommodation” when it comes to applying accessibility and universal design? Professor Rafael de Asis Roig discusses this philosophical question in the context of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability. He contends that the content of universal accessibility is “constrained by three types of circumstances that could be considered as the bounds for what is necessary, possible and reasonable”.

Universal Design and Reasonable Accommodation

Australian Human Rights Commission logoFor anyone interested in the debate about reasonableness, and the application of “unjustifiable hardship” rulings by the Australian Human Rights Commission, this article explores reasonableness from different perspectives and concludes,

“Therefore, in accordance with the foregoing, it is possible to have a comprehensive vision about reasonableness in the disability domain. This demand makes it necessary to deem a measure as reasonable in the context of disabilities when:

    • It is justified because it adequately provides for full participation in society.
    • It shall be deemed as possible, taking into account the state of scientific, technical and human diversity knowledge.
    • It shall be deemed as a non-discriminatory differentiation or undifferentiation which is not harmful for physical and moral integrity and at the same time does not prevent from meeting basic needs nor avoids participation in society on an equal basis.
    • It shall be deemed as proportional and, therefore, entails more advantages than sacrifices within the context of human rights.
    • It shall be deemed as acceptable by the community to which it is addressed.”

The article, Reasonableness in the Concept of Reasonable Accommodation, was published in The Age of Human Rights Journal, 6 (June 2016)

An earlier unpublished article tackles the issues of human rights and “unjustifiable hardship” in the Australian context by Schraner, Bringolf and Sidoti which discusses the issues from an economic perspective. Written in 2012, it pre-dates the implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

  

Australia’s Digital Inclusion Index

Front cover of the Digital Accessibility Report.The international Digital Accessibility Rights Evaluation Index (DARE) rates Australia as 71 points out of 100. Apparently this makes us 12th in global rankings with an implementation ranking of 10th. The index takes Australia’s laws and regulations, policies and programs, and capacity to implement inclusive technology into the scale. It seems Australia has full capacity to implement, but has only just passed the halfway mark in actual implementation.

More detail is available on the G3ict website. You can also see the score of other countries. Oman has the top overall global ranking of 81 points.

G3ict has also produced a report with more detail. “The report gathers insights from the survey by Level Access in cooperation with G3ict on the current state of accessibility in organizations as undertaken by 550 professionals from organizations of all sectors. The high number of responses shows the considerable interest for trends in accessibility implementation. Readers are encouraged to go through the detailed results of the survey and compare them to their own experience to help advance their own endeavors and the accessibility profession at large.”

Tourism Tips for increased business

A distance view of an English coastal village showing a harbour wall.Holidays for All is a key section in a new research report by Barclays. It is a pity that this section ends up in the latter part of the report because it applies to all other sections. The tips and case studies in a pdf document cover all aspects of the hospitality and tourism business.  Although the report focuses on the UK domestic tourism market, the principles for increased business are applicable elsewhere.

The title of the report is the Great British Staycation. It is a very readable report and the section on holidays for all is worth a look, and it ends with strategies for success with key points from each of the chapters:

    • Know your demographic
    • Foster Loyalty
    • Capture early bookers
    • Add value through collaboration
    • Reap digital dividends
    • Provide options where possible
    • Take them behind the screen
    • Be accessible to all

It is not unusual to find references to accessibility and inclusion somewhere in a subheading of a research report. This is unfortunate because this is the one part that applies to all other sections. See also the economic argument from Simon Darcy.

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