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What best practice should be followed when designing for disability?

Lisa Miles

Sometimes designing for disability can be something simple such as the automatic doors we have around Futures place. We have colleagues who use a variety of mobility aids to get around, so the automatic doors just makes things easier.

There's also a lot of recent and exciting innovation in designing products for accessibility, such as XRAI's glasses that turn spoken words into subtitles displayed on a pair of glasses to help the hard of hearing participate in the conversations around them, bionic exoskeletons that may one day replace wheelchairs and video game controllers specifically designed for gamers with dexterity challenges.

Have you seen any examples of good design that should be written up as best practice when designing for disability? When undertaking a project specifically aimed at designing for disability, what considerations should be made? 

Would love to hear your insights, tips, and real-world examples of designing with disability and accessibility in mind.

Parents

  • Everyone here so far seems to have picked up on physical disabilities which are very much apparent. However, I feel there is a lack of best practices around those hidden disabilities, which there are many.

    Some of these are temporary, pregnancy, although not technically a disability, still needs consideration and reasonable adjustments made. We see those adaptions in many places, designated seats, lifts to platforms, etc.

    Its also what do you define as a disability - is it the absolute inability or just the fact the person is impacted. Someone like me works best in a calm muted environment. I'm not at my best in a noisy environment with lots of movement.

    The same goes with some long term health conditions, diabetes for instance, I would agree does not need specific design (except in the case of specific products to aim the management of the condition). But it can lead to other conditions that do need specific consideration.

Reply

  • Everyone here so far seems to have picked up on physical disabilities which are very much apparent. However, I feel there is a lack of best practices around those hidden disabilities, which there are many.

    Some of these are temporary, pregnancy, although not technically a disability, still needs consideration and reasonable adjustments made. We see those adaptions in many places, designated seats, lifts to platforms, etc.

    Its also what do you define as a disability - is it the absolute inability or just the fact the person is impacted. Someone like me works best in a calm muted environment. I'm not at my best in a noisy environment with lots of movement.

    The same goes with some long term health conditions, diabetes for instance, I would agree does not need specific design (except in the case of specific products to aim the management of the condition). But it can lead to other conditions that do need specific consideration.

Children
  • in reply to Mark Tickner
    Mark Tickner said:
    Everyone here so far seems to have picked up on physical disabilities which are very much apparent. However, I feel there is a lack of best practices around those hidden disabilities, which there are many.

    There are also the following:

    PAS 6463 Neurodiversity in the built environment

    Mark Tickner said:
    Some of these are temporary, pregnancy, although not technically a disability, still needs consideration and reasonable adjustments made. We see those adaptions in many places, designated seats, lifts to platforms, etc.

    There's lots of information from NHS and HSE about this ... and other temporary conditions.

    Temporary conditions are something that's difficult for a designer of buildings to consider beyond a certain point (brings into 'what's reasonably practicable'), and even with the accessibility/disability legislation, there is still, for workplaces, a limit to 'reasonable adjustment'

    Having said that, the 'limits' and 'reasonable adjustment' do change over time, because of;

    • Advances in technology
    • Reduction in cost of technology or other adjustments
    • Changes in societal/ethical opinions

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