Research Colloquium_Beyond Barriers

Research Colloquium Paper Beyond Barriers Barrier free living and accessible design for people with disabilities

Guide: Shilpa Das By: Mrinalini Sardar | PGDPD.Graphic Design | Semester Four

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

Contents 04 Introduction 06 Background / Context 07 Research Problem 07 Research Objective 07 Rationale of the Project 10 Operational Definitions for this Study 15 Main Body of Research 19 Research Questions 23 Conclusion 25 Bibliography

Mrinalini Sardar | PGDPD. GD 2010-2013 | National Institute of Design

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Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

Introduction:

“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”

- Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard While estimates vary, there is growing evidence that people with disabilities comprise between 4 and 8 percent of the Indian population (around 4090 million individuals)* . It comes over a decade after landmark legislation promoting the rights of persons with disabilities to full participation in Indian society, and finds that progress is evident in some areas. However, the policy commitments of governments in a number of areas remain in large part unfulfilled. To some extent this was inevitable, given the ambition of commitments made, existing institutional capacity, and entrenched societal attitudes to disabled people in India. However, it also reflects a relative neglect of people with disabilities through weak institutions and poor accountability mechanisms, lack of awareness among providers, communities and People with Disabilities of their rights, and failure to involve the non-governmental sector more intensively.

Most importantly, People with Disabilities themselves remain largely outside the policy and implementation framework, at best clients rather than active participants in development. There is also evidence** in key areas like employment that people with disabilities are falling further behind the rest of the population, risking deepening their already significant poverty and social marginalization. The slow progress in expanding opportunities for disabled people in India results in substantial losses to people with disabilities themselves, and to society and the economy at large in terms of underdeveloped human capital, loss of output from productive disabled people, and impacts on households and communities.

Equal opportunity is required for an equal society. We can only achieve a balanced society by providing equal opportunities to maximum number of people. The status enjoyed by people of different social groups, different ages or different abilities in a society often depends on a collective vision.

The way public areas are designed and the way public life is organised significantly determine who can play an active role. Barrier free planning is necessary in this domain wherein planning of systems for buildings, communication, environment and public systems need to be done.

Disability and accessibility are inter-connected. To understand truly how our environments can accommodate people with disabilities, an understanding of history in terms of both the Indian and the Western context is required, because it is only then we would be able to understand the significance of their oppression. This knowledge is vital for both people with disabilities and those without, because the biggest obstacle to the meaningful inclusion of people with disabilities to mainstream community is negative public attitudes.

The usage of the correct definitions of referring to people with disabilities is imperative and gives us a deeper insight about society.

* The World Bank Report (May, 2007) on ‘People with Disabilities in India: From Commitments to Outcomes. ** Employment of people with disability actually fell from 43% in 1991 to 38% in 2002, despite the country’s economic growth. Source- Chapter 5: Employment from The World Bank Report (May, 2007) on ‘People with Disabilities in India: From Commitments to Outcomes.

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Mrinalini Sardar | PGDPD. GD 2010-2013 | National Institute of Design

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

There have been various models in disability studies that aim to understand it.

These include mainly the Morality Model, the Social Model, the Medical Model and the more modern models being ‘The Strength Perspective’, ‘Capabilites Model’ by Amartya Sen and ‘The Affirmative/ Gay Rights Model among others.’

It is important to understand the myriad domains that the category of disability follows and sometimes also, falsely connoted with in order to understand why our environments are becoming increasingly lesser accessible and non-universal.

Various policies and Acts give us their perspective on the disability issue, like the U.N., U.P.I.A.S, W.H.O and the Indian Persons and Disabilities Act, but it is up to us to conclude what is the best context to fit the universal design model into.

If there is a welcome change in our approach to disability, from a medical to a social model, it follows that the role of design needs to change too, and therefore the nature of design teams must change as well. Design processes need to become more inclusive in several ways, involving not only disabled people themselves but also a greater diversity of people including designers. Mediocrity must be avoided at all levels. In design for special needs, mediocrity can result in people being further stigmatized by the very products that are intended to remove barriers for them, thereby undermining the highest goal of social inclusion. If design for disability seeks to marginalize design in general, it will marginalize itself instead.

It is important that we keep the design in design for disability. This might prove as challenging within design for disability as disability can be within a wider design community, but it is a challenge that both cultures need to rise to.

Introduction 5

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

Background:

The problem arose from a question sitting in the Science and Liberal Arts course conducted by A.F. Matthew at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad wherein he stressed on our environments becoming increasingly difficult for accessibility by people with disabilities. The problem of design for disability is increasingly becoming specific instead of providing universal solutions. This increases the marginalisation and segregation of people with disabilities from mainstream society.

Studying for over two years at National Institute of Design has always made me wonder why the campus is hugely inaccessible to people with disabilities.

And if we closely notice other prestigious institutions like the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) as well as Centre for Planning and Architecture (CEPT), we would not find the basic necessary measures for making the campus friendly for people with disabilities. Not only campuses, but all architectural planning must be thought with great detail so that people with disabilities are not marginalized and kept isolated from the whole society. It may be argued that the difference between ‘we’ (the so called normal society) and ‘they’ (the people with disabilities) are not done intentionally, but for a society to flourish with full strength, all sections of society must be thought about, whether they are religiously demarcated or physically impaired.

India has some 40 to 80 million people with disability*. But low literacy, few jobs and widespread social stigma are making people with disabilities, among the most excluded in India. Children with disability are less likely to be in school, adults with disability are more likely to be unemployed, and families with a member who has a disability are often worse off than average.

With better education and more access to jobs, people with disabilities can become an integral part of society, as well as help generate higher economic growth that will benefit the country as a whole.

In the years to come, the number of people with disability in India is expected to rise sharply as age related disabilities grow and traffic accidents increase. This is borne out by the fact that internationally, the highest reported disability rates are in OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries.

India has a growing disability rights movement and one of the more progressive policy frameworks in the developing world. But, a lot more needs to be done in implementation and “getting the basics right”. Newer thinking and better coordination of programs is called for. Preventive health programs need to be deepened and all children screened at a young age. People with disabilities need to be better integrated into society by overcoming stigma; adults with disability need to be empowered with employable skills; and the private sector needs to be encouraged to employ them. The scale of disability in India needs to be better understood by improving the measurement of disability. Most importantly, people with disabilities should themselves be made active participants in the development process.

1981 was marked as the International Year of Disabled Persons, an event that constituted a landmark in the long struggle towards recognizing the rights of the disabled and creating a better understanding of their needs and appreciation of their capabilities. After the International Year of Disabled

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The World Bank Report on ‘People with Disabilities in India: From Commitments to Outcomes.

Mrinalini Sardar | PGDPD. GD 2010-2013 | National Institute of Design

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

Persons came the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons, adopted by the General Assembly in its resolution 37/52 of 3 December 1982. In its resolution 37/53 of the same date, the General Assembly proclaimed the period 1983-1992 the United Nations Decade of Disabled Persons. These actions prompted considerable activity in the field of disability at the international, regional and national levels.

Research Problem:

There is a lack in the existing literature regarding the connection of accessibility with disability and why the spaces around us are becoming increasingly non-universal and more marginalized.

Research Objective:

The paper aims to study relevant limitations that users might suffer from and how parts of the built environment can become barriers to someone with these limitations. The need of including people with disabilities into mainstream society instead of marginalising them is the key thought behind the research.

Rationale of Project:

Design and disability can go hand in hand to help remove the stigma of disability from the public. Architectural or Design Planning plays a key role in integrating people with disabilities into mainstream society.

It is so difficult to open a jar without the full use of one’s hands. It is quite unsafe to step into the shower when one has arthritis or a knee injury. Is getting into a car always as simple as one-two-three, or could it take more planning for someone with an injured back? Asking these kinds of questions – and many more – is part of a new and growing dimension of design. The trend in making products – and information – more accessible to those with any kind of disability is gathering momentum. Interestingly, seeking design solutions that meet the needs of people with disabilities results in a better overall design, benefitting both the able and disabled.

New terminology has been coined to describe more inclusive design processes, including terms such as accessible design, barrier-free design and assistive technology. Universal design is a relatively new approach that has emerged from these models and describes the design elements of buildings, products and environments that allow for the broadest range of users and applications. The Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University in the U.S. developed Principles of Universal Design, which guide a wide range of design disciplines. The Center defines universal design as designing products and environments in such a way that they are usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design for particular users.

Creating awareness among designers: Functional limitations in vision, hearing and mobility interact and often aggravate each other. Poorly designed products and environments that may merely inconvenience users normally become insurmountable with such limitations – potentially transforming someone’s everyday world into an unsafe and insecure place. Rani Lueder, President of Humanics Ergo Systems consulting firm in Encino, California, has taught human factors classes to industrial design students at the Art Center College in Pasadena. To help students expand their notion of designing for all people, she required them to simulate physical disability as part of their design projects.

Rationale of the Project 7

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

For example, one student evaluated entry into different vehicles with a metal bar strapped onto his back to model the physical restrictions associated with back injuries. Others tried creative approaches such as restricting joints with bandages to simulate arthritis, adding bulky layers to imitate obesity and developing contraptions that limited peripheral vision. The exercise brought home the meaning of functional impairment to young design students and essentially showed the process of universal design to them. Many of them reported it had permanently changed their understanding of design implications for this vulnerable group of users.

Design for the elderly Objects and environments designed for the aging have tended to look less appealing than other options on the market. But unaesthetic designs are not a necessary evil for older persons.

Kitchens, for example, can be made accessible to people with the disabilities associated with aging and yet look bright, modern and welcoming. The design team of German kitchen manufacturer Alno created a new kitchen for older customers by focusing on bringing kitchen units to the user, thus avoiding their having to bend over. The result is a fluid kitchen – My Way – that uses an electronically based tracking system to allow cabinets, appliances and even the sink to meet the user. With the push of a button, the kitchen countertop can be raised or the stovetop lowered to the height of a wheelchair. What’s more, people of all ages – and heights – could also enjoy cooking in such a customizable environment.

Let’s play Children with disabilities often have far fewer opportunities to play than other children do, not only because their abilities are limited but because those limitations are barely, if at all, taken into consideration in play product design. Institutional appearance, high cost and low entertainment value, are common drawbacks in products designed only for children with disabilities.

Through programs such as “Let’s Play”, based at the University of Buffalo (New York), which collaborates with manufacturers to optimize universal features in toy design, children with disabilities can be included in the design process.

By expanding the “ability range” of toys to include features that children with disabilities can master, more children benefit (known as the from-able-todisabled universal design approach). On the other hand, the from-disabledto-able2 approach can broaden play options for children without disabilities.

Therapeutic toys with greater play possibilities mean children without disabilities can also enjoy the entertaining elements of the toys while at the same time working on skill development. The larger production volume from a wider market, which would include all children, could also significantly lower product costs making the toys more affordable.

In communications Designing information systems is another area where the needs of the disabled are increasingly being taken into account. And communication being the wave of the present – and future – it is vital that telecommunications and Internet services be made accessible to all users.

In a move to follow the guidelines of the Web Accessibility Initiative, WIPO installed software for the visually impaired on its public computers. The 8

Mrinalini Sardar | PGDPD. GD 2010-2013 | National Institute of Design

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

software allows a visually impaired person to navigate through sites while web pages are read aloud – making vast quantities of information on the Web accessible auditorily.

Similarly, telecommunications systems that take into account the needs of the hearing impaired might incorporate a captioned telephone facility – a system that uses speech recognition technology to convert an operator’s voice into text. How does this kind of environmental design yield benefits for those without disabilities?

By providing a more level playing field for all members of society and bringing more people into the arena where knowledge is shared and contacts are made.

Education, awareness, empathy Design professor Don Norman says in his book ‘The Design of Future Things’ that:

“The disabled are not just some small, disenfranchised group: they represent all of us. So the first step is education, awareness and empathy.”

The good news is that considering the needs of the disabled will ultimately lead to designs that are safer, more flexible and more attractive for all consumers. If we work towards a world where design solutions are found for people of all degrees of ability, then only we can justify the flourishing power of a strong and united society.

Although every domain of society have very little place for keeping in mind people with disability whether it be health, education, employment or policy making, this research paper specifically concentrates on barriers in daily architectural planning that cause difficulty for people with disability to access these spaces.

Rationale of the Project 9

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

Operational Definitions for this Study:

Disability:

It is very important to elaborate on disability and the terms associated with it as the usage of certain words may cause controversies or prove to be derogatory towards people with disabilities. Any language used to describe the issues around disability is understandably – and rightly- politically charged. The most widely accepted conventions also vary from country to country, between cultures and evolve over time.

The World Health Organization describes ‘Disabilities’ is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions.

An ‘impairment’ is a problem in body function or structure; an ‘activity limitation’ is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a ‘participation restriction’ is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations. Thus disability is a complex phenomenon, reflecting an interaction between features of a person’s body and features of the society in which he or she lives. A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, and developmental or some combination of these.

Difference between Impairment, Disability and the Handicap:

Impairment:

Impairment is the correct term to use to define a bodily condition, such as not being able to make a muscle move or not being able to control an unwanted movement.

Disability:

Disability is the term used to define a restriction in the ability to perform a usual activity of daily living, which someone of the same age is able to perform. For example, a three-year old child who is not able to walk has a disability because a normal three year old can walk independently.

Handicap:

Handicap is the term used to describe a child or adult who, because of the disability, is unable to achieve the normative role in society commensurate with his age and socio-cultural milieu. As an example, a sixteen-year-old who is unable to prepare his own meal or care for his own toileting or hygiene needs is handicapped. On the other hand, a sixteen-year-old who can walk only with the assistance of crutches but who attends a regular school and is fully independent in activities of daily living is disabled but not handicapped.

All disabled people are impaired, and all handicapped people are disabled, but a person can be impaired and not necessarily be disabled, and a person can be disabled without being handicapped.

Sociology of Disability:

People first Language:

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The American Psychological Association style guide states that, when identifying a person with an impairment, the person’s name or pronoun should come first, and descriptions of the impairment/disability should be used so that the impairment is identified, but is not modifying the person.

Improper examples are “a borderline”, “a blind person”, or “an autistic boy”; more acceptable terminology includes “a woman with Down syndrome” or “a man who has schizophrenia”. It also states that a person’s adaptive equipment should be described functionally as something that assists a person, not as something that limits a person, e.g., “a woman who uses a wheelchair” rather than “a woman in/confined to a wheelchair.”

Mrinalini Sardar | PGDPD. GD 2010-2013 | National Institute of Design

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

People with Disabilities: (PWD)

A similar kind of “people-first” terminology is also used in the UK, but more often in the form “people with impairments” (e.g., “people with visual impairments”).

However, in the UK, the term “disabled people” is generally preferred to “people with disabilities”. It is argued under the social model that while someone’s impairment (e.g., having a spinal cord injury) is an individual property, “disability” is something created by external societal factors such as a lack of wheelchair access to the workplace. This distinction between the individual property of impairment and the social property of disability is central to the social model. The term “disabled people” as a political construction is also widely used by international organizations of disabled people, such as Disabled Peoples’ International (DPI).

In the context of an environment or society that takes little or no account of impairment, people’s activities can be limited and their social participation restricted. People are therefore disabled by the society they live in, not directly by their impairment, which is an argument for using the term disabled people, rather than people with disabilities, with the latter being known as people first language.

International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF): The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), produced by the World Health Organization, distinguishes between body functions (physiological or psychological, e.g., vision) and body structures (anatomical parts, e.g., the eye and related structures). Impairment in bodily structure or function is defined as involving an anomaly, defect, loss or other significant deviation from certain generally accepted population standards, which may fluctuate over time.

Activity is defined as the execution of a task or action.

Conceptual Models on Disability: The introduction to the ICF states that a variety of conceptual models have been proposed to understand and explain disability and functioning. The models include the following:

The Medical Model:

The medical model of disability is a sociopolitical model by which illness or disability, being the result of a physical condition, and which is intrinsic to the individual (it is part of that individual’s own body), may reduce the individual’s quality of life, and causes clear disadvantages to the individual.

It is today specifically referred to as the “medical model” of disability because of the high degree to which medical solutions, such as surgeries, orthotics and clinical physical therapy, are emphasized, and how they are intended chiefly as a way to “normalize” a disabled person’s participation in society as much as possible.

The medical model tends to believe that ‘curing’ or at least ‘managing’ illness or disability mostly or completely revolves around identifying the illness or disability from an in-depth clinical perspective (in the sense of the scientific understanding undertaken by trained healthcare providers), understanding it, and learning to ‘control’ and/or alter its course. By extension, the medical model also believes that a “compassionate” or just society invests resources in health care and related services in an attempt to ‘cure’ disabilities medically, to expand functionality and/ or improve functioning, and to allow disabled persons a more “normal” life. The medical profession’s responsibility and potential in this area is seen as central.

Among advocates of disability rights, the medical model of disability is often cited as the basis of an unintended social degradation of disabled people; further, resources are seen as excessively misdirected towards an almost-exclusively Operational Definitions 11

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

medical focus when those same resources could be used towards things like universal design and societal inclusionary practices. This includes the monetary and the societal costs and benefits of various interventions, be they medical, surgical, social or occupational, from prosthetics, drug-based and other “cures”, and medical tests such as genetic screening or preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Often, a medical model of disability is used to justify large investment in these procedures, technologies and research, when adaptation of the disabled person’s environment might ultimately be more beneficial to the society at large, as well as financially cheaper and physically more attainable.

Further, some disability rights groups see the medical model of disability as a civil rights issue, and criticize charitable or medical initiatives that use it in their portrayal of disabled people, because it promotes a pitiable, essentially negative, largely disempowered image of people with disabilities, rather than casting disability as a political, social and environmental problem.

The recent World Health Organization ICF Classification (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health) takes into account the social aspects of disability and does not see disability only as a ‘medical’ or ‘biological’ dysfunction.

Piss on Pity:

The Social Model:

It is a rallying cry for those in the disability-inclusive circles of world politics.

According to its proponents, the implication of the slogan is that Pity, while seeming to be a positive, helpful emotion, actually is derogatory. According to them, it’s based in conscious or unconscious aversion to people with disabilities, and the ableism (a form of discrimination or social prejudice against people with disabilities), which that aversion consciously or unconsciously represents. Activists using the slogan will often explain that their ultimate goal in a militant, provocative slogan of this type is to get across the message that, like anti-racism and anti-sexism, they want to purge pity from worldwide social discourse on disability, at both the governmental and cultural levels, and instead foster disability-inclusive practices and equal power politics.

The social model of disability is a reaction to the dominant medical model of disability, which in itself is a Cartesian functional analysis of the body as machine to be fixed in order to conform to normative values. The social model of disability identifies systemic barriers, negative attitudes and exclusion by society (purposely or inadvertently) that mean society is the main contributory factor in disabling people. While physical, sensory, intellectual, or psychological variations, may cause individual functional limitation or impairments, these do not have to lead to disability unless society fails to take account of and include people regardless of their individual differences.

The approach behind the model is traced to the civil rights/human rights movements of the 1960s. In 1975, the UK organization Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) claimed: “In our view it is society which disables physically impaired people. Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society.”

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Mrinalini Sardar | PGDPD. GD 2010-2013 | National Institute of Design

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

In 1983, the disabled academic Mike Oliver coined the phrase “social model of disability” in reference to these ideological developments. The “social model” was extended and developed by academics and activists in the UK, US and other countries, and extended to include all disabled people, including those who have learning difficulties / learning disabilities / or who are mentally handicapped, or people with emotional, mental health or behavioral problems.

A fundamental aspect of the social model concerns equality. The struggle for equality is often compared to the struggles of other socially marginalized groups.

Equal rights are said to give empowerment and the “ability” to make decisions and the opportunity to live life to the fullest.

The social model of disability implies that attempts to change, “fix” or “cure” individuals, especially when against the wishes of the patient, can be discriminatory and prejudiced. This attitude, which may be seen as stemming from a medical model and a subjective value system, can harm the self-esteem and social inclusion of those constantly subjected to it (e.g. being told they are not as good or valuable, in an overall and core sense, as others). Some communities have actively resisted “treatments”, while, for example, defending a unique culture or set of abilities. In the deaf community, sign language is valued even if most people do not know it and some parents argue against cochlear implants for deaf infants who cannot consent to them.

Universal Design:

Universal design refers to broad-spectrum ideas meant to produce buildings, products and environments that are inherently accessible to both people without disabilities and people with disabilities.

The term “universal design” was coined by the architect Ronald L. Mace to describe the concept of designing all products and the built environment to be aesthetic and usable to the greatest extent possible by everyone, regardless of their age, ability, or status in life. However, it was the work of Selwyn Goldsmith, author of Designing for the Disabled (1963), who really pioneered the concept of free access for disabled people. His most significant achievement was the creation of the dropped curb - now a standard feature of the built environment.

Universal design emerged from slightly earlier barrier-free concepts, the broader accessibility movement, and adaptive and assistive technology and also seeks to blend aesthetics into these core considerations. As life expectancy rises and modern medicine increases the survival rate of those with significant injuries, illnesses, and birth defects, there is a growing interest in universal design. There are many industries in which universal design is having strong market penetration but there are many others in which it has not yet been adapted to any great extent. Universal design is also being applied to the design of technology, instruction, services, and other products and environments.

Examples: Curb cuts or sidewalk ramps, essential for people in wheelchairs but also used by all, are a common example. Color-contrast dishware with steep sides that assists those with visual or dexterity problems are another. There are also cabinets with pull out shelves, kitchen counters at several heights to accommodate different tasks and postures, and, amidst many of the world’s public transit systems, low-floor buses that “kneel” (bring their front end to ground level to eliminate gap) and/or are equipped with ramps rather than on-board lifts.

Operational Definitions 13

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

Accessibility:

Accessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is available to as many people as possible. Accessibility can be viewed as the “ability to access” and benefit from some system or entity. Accessibility is often used to focus on people with disabilities or special needs and their right of access to entities, often through use of assistive technology.

Accessibility is not to be confused with usability which is used to describe the extent to which a product (e.g., device, service, environment) can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.

Accessibility is strongly related to universal design when the approach involves “direct access”. This is about making things accessible to all people (whether they have a disability or not). An alternative is to provide “indirect access” by having the entity support the use of a person’s assistive technology to achieve access (e.g., screen readers).

The term “accessibility” is also used in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as well as the term “universal design”.

Design for All (DfA):

The term Design for All (DfA) is used to describe a design philosophy targeting the use of products, services and systems by as many people as possible without the need for adaptation. Design for All is design for human diversity, social inclusion and equality (EIDD Stockholm Declaration, 2004).

According to the European Commission, it “encourages manufacturers and service providers to produce new technologies for everyone: technologies that are suitable for the elderly and people with disabilities, as much as the teenage techno wizard.” The origin of Design for All lies in the field of barrier free accessibility for people with disabilities and the broader notion of universal design.

The Barrier-free Concept:

Barrier-free building modification consists of modifying buildings or facilities so that they can be used by the physically disadvantaged or disabled. The term is used primarily in Japan and non-English speaking countries (e.g.

German: Barrierefreiheit; Finnish: Esteettömän rakentamisen), while in English-speaking countries, terms such as “accessibility” and “handicapped accessible” dominate in regular everyday use. An example of barrier-free design would be installing a ramp for wheelchairs alongside or in place of steps. In the case of new buildings, however, the idea of barrier free modification has largely been superseded by the concept of universal design, which seeks to design things from the outset to support easy access.

Anthropometry:

It means measuring and working to the form and dimensions of the human body – body size and weight, and torso, arm and leg length. Anthropometric adjustment means, for instance, designing workspaces or furniture to match a person’s proportions. Anthropometric considerations are particularly important when planning for people who have motor impairments or who are unusually large or small.

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Mrinalini Sardar | PGDPD. GD 2010-2013 | National Institute of Design

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

Main Body of Research:

In physical terms, the provision of a barrier-free environment can be undertaken in four complementary domains: (a) Inside buildings (b) In the immediate vicinity of buildings (c) On local roads and paths; (d) In open spaces and recreational areas 1. BARRIER FREE PLANNING: The aim of planning and building regulations is generally to equip buildings, adapt living environments and optimize workplaces for the needs of the ‘average person’.

Statistically, most people fit this planning model, which is why it forms the basis for the constructed environment in the first place, but it leaves a significant ‘nonavaergae’ sector of the population unable to take full advantage of their constructed environment, excluded from many areas of mainstream society and hindered in their day-to-day lives. Every person has the right to a living space that they can use independently, largely unaided and without restrictive barriers. This barrier-free living space should extend beyond their own homes to include their whole living environment and every social setting. Beyond the construction situation, freedom from barriers is a part of the concept of human equality. The central principle is that a person is not inherently disabled, but disability is generated through their surroundings. The most fundamental aspects of buildings, product and service planning are described by the terms Universal Design and Design for All.

People with limitations:

Groups of people with various limitations to their mobility, information or communication within their environment have particular needs. These groups include: -People with impaired mobility (e.g. people unable to walk easily, older people or unusually small or tall people).

- People with limited perception, such as blind and and visually impaired people, or those who are deaf or have partial or profound hearing impairment - People with cognitive impairments such as mental illness, impaired speech, learning difficulties, or dementia.

People whose impairment is not long-term: such as a temporary loss of mobility and the associated limitation of independence – may also need help to cope with their environment. These include children, who see the world differently from adults, pregnant women or parents with push-chairs trying to navigate a parked-up street, and people with temporarily impaired mobility due to illness or injury – a broken bone or a sprain, for instance.

Barrier-free goals:

All these groups require support above and beyond the requirements of the average person to lead active day-to-day lives. The aim of barrier-free design measures is to integrate these groups into mainstream life. The equality aspect has been recognized by many states and by international organizations as a basic right, often enshrined in law. This has also led to a greater awareness of special needs in the general population, helping to make barrier-free planning of buildings and street spaces part of the standard planning parameters.

Main Body of Research 15

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

Demographic Development:

Lifespan:

A population’s demographic development plays an important role. If a society is steadily growing older, homes will increasingly have to be adapted to the needs of older people. If, on the other hand, birth rates are rising , child care places and public play areas will be a social priority. Shifts in the age pyramid are often caused by social, political or economic changes, and can be predicted several years in advance.

Needs change throughout a person’s life span. Requirements for children’s and elderly people’s housing differ significantly from those for people in their middle years. Barrier-free planning therefore means thinking ahead and building for the future- not only meeting the present needs of users, but creating living spaces that can easily and safely be used by children or adapted for people who are old or have restricted mobility.

2. TYPES OF BARRIER: For people both with long-term impairments and with temporary special needs (e.g. children, pregnant women or ill people), everyday life is filled with partial or total barriers to independence, often in the built environment.

Barriers to Mobility:

In constructed surroundings, people with limitations often encounter mobility barriers, such as changes in ground level, inadequate area for movement, or overtly narrow corridors. Matters that are quite trivial to the average citizen can present a serious impediment to people with disabilities, who may also have limited physical strength, speed of movement, balance or coordination.

Height differences: Overcoming differences in levels is a major difficulty in the daily lives of people with motor limitations. Vertical barriers are present in all areas of life. Using public transport, for instance, may be impossible without special unobstructed access. A high curb or step may be a barrier for people who have difficulties in walking and for parents with pushchairs, as well as for wheelchair users.

Barriers are also ubiquitous in personal living and working environments.

Front drives and entrances to houses, the thresholds of doors or balconies and upstairs areas are the obvious examples. Often, however, small details that would go unnoticed by anyone not sensitized to the needs of people with disability represent ‘barriers’. For instance, uneven paving on an access path may obstruct wheelchairs, and getting into a bath tub or shower cubicle may be an insurmountable obstacle.

Passage and movement areas: People using aids such as walking frames or wheelchairs need wider transit and movement areas than non-disabled people, as they may not be able to edge past a parked car blocking the pavement or move to the other side of the street. Public buildings and public transport access routes must be wide enough and horizontally level.

To be independent, people with motor restrictions need adequate space for movement in their own living and working environment. This applies to the width and extension of transport and activity areas – hallways, doorways and window areas, working spaces and the areas around furnishings and sanitary

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Mrinalini Sardar | PGDPD. GD 2010-2013 | National Institute of Design

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

objects. The aisles in halls and other common spaces are generally wide enough, but the passages between rooms present a bottleneck for people with walking frames or wheelchairs, and are made more arduous by the need to open doors.

Getting through revolving doors and doors that open into the space occupied by a wheelchair is very difficult – the only way is to operate the door handle from a sitting position while pushing the wheelchair back at the same time.

Barriers to Operating Controls:

In addition to adequate transit and movement areas, barrier-free building plans require anthropometric user control and visual information placement.

Their different perspective on their surroundings means that wheel chair users, children or unusually small or tall people have difficulties with controls meant for people of average size. This applies to door and window catches, doorbells, light switches, electrical sockets, thermostats, sanitary objects with controls (taps, flush controls, showers), kitchens, and lift controls. Any controls horizontally out of arm’s reach or too high up are unsuitable for people with disabilities. Any special arrangements, however, do have a disadvantage: controls mounted at an unusual height rather than in the expected places may in turn create a barrier for blind and visually impaired people.

Ergonomic barriers: The design of any fixture control or piece of furniture has an impact on people with limitations. A small keypad for a lift or an access control system, for instance, maybe inoperable by people with a motor or haptic impairment, or hard to find by people with a visual impairment. Without aids such as hand rails or seating, long routes maybe arduous for old or ill people. Sanitary facilities without grab handles or seating may also be impossible to use unaided. Work surfaces or washbasins with cabinets fitted underneath make elements such as the taps harder for people in wheelchairs to reach.

Barriers to Orientation:

Deprived of certain sensory information, people with sensory impairments in particular have problem orienting them selves. The barriers involved vary depending on which sense is entirely or partially absent, and may be insurmountable without outside help.

Visual barriers: Most everyday information is visual – sight is the most important means of perception. Consequently, even mild visual impairment can cause problems if public transport information such as the names of stops, information signs or the name on a bell is represented in very small type.

More severe visual impairment makes orientation in the street or in buildings difficult, as a person maybe able to perceive only colours or contrasts. Environments with extremes of contrast and colour, which are difficult to classify spatially, make information - gathering difficult. Blind people have far more barriers to overcome.

With no visual aids to finding the way, they have to depend solely on hearing, smell and haptic perception. Orientation is particularly difficult in undifferentiated or unfamiliar streets and interior spaces. Any change in a space is a threat, disrupting a blind person’s calculations in finding their way by memory.

Auditory barriers: Partially or profoundly deaf people encounter auditory barriers in any kind of communication. In a public space, potentially dangerous events that hearing people Main Body of Research 17

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

would be aware of even if they happened out of sight will not be apparent to people with hearing impairments. They are excluded to a greater or lesser extent from auditory information such as public transport announcements, doorbells or warning signals (fire alarms, sirens). In some cases, these may make no impact or even be potentially life threatening.

The two-sense principle: This kind of barrier should be removed by providing information to two different senses. This two-sense principle, or alternative perception, makes orientation and learning easier by allowing hearing, sight and touch to compensate for each other: • Instead of sight = hearing and touch/feel • Instead of hearing = sight and touch/ vibration This principle applies particularly to alarms, emergency services calls, and alarm announcement systems. It is also useful for general information giving and communication.

3. PLANNING REQUIREMENTS: Above all, barrier-free planning should improve the lives of people with limitations or impairments by addressing their needs. In this sense, a barrierfree building design enables people with disabilities to use the building independently and easily. The first question that arises within a planning assignment is who the future users will be: • Planning for an individual: Adaptation for the needs of a specific person.

• Planning for a group: A plan tailored to a certain average user profile.

• Planning for non-specific users: taking into account, as far as possible, the needs of people with different requirements.

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Planning for an individual:

If the planning assignment is to plan a home, for instance, for a particular person, then it can be precisely adapted to the user profile. In this case, an individual with limitations can be included in the planning process and can explain his/her needs, and the planner can build up a picture by accompanying the user through his/her daily routine. This means that planning can be tailored exactly to the specific abilities and limitations of the person in question. Any needs in future life as well as present needs must be planned for. People become older and lose mobility, so that even an individually created plan must contain some flexibility for the future.

Planning for a group:

If a specific target group is being planned for, the planner must focus on the average requirements of this group. In particular, buildings such as kindergartens, care homes for elderly people and special-needs schools – schools for visually impaired children, for instance – must match the needs of users with and without limitations (including visitors and staff).

Planning for non-specific users:

If a location is used by many people, it must be made barrier-free for as many people as possible. This applies to all public outdoor space and transport space and public buildings such as government buildings, health care facilities, leisure facilities etc. It includes anyone whose limitations allow some degree of independent mobility. Inevitably, however, individuals with specific abilities will sometimes encounter barriers. Removing barriers for some users may also create barriers for others.

Mrinalini Sardar | PGDPD. GD 2010-2013 | National Institute of Design

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

Research Questions:

Certain questions have lingered in my mind while researching for this paper. For some I may have found answers but for the others, there are no single correct answers but depends on the perception of every individual and the context they are dwelling in. The questions have been elaborated as follows: Q1: What is being done to improve the daily lives of people with disabilities?

A1: About six hundred million people live with disabilities of various types due to chronic diseases, injuries, violence, infectious diseases, malnutrition, and other causes closely related to poverty. This number is increasing. Of this total, 80% of people with disabilities live in low-income countries; most are poor and have limited or no access to basic services, including rehabilitation facilities.

The Fifty-eighth World Health Assembly has adopted a resolution aimed at improving the daily lives of people with disabilities. It calls on WHO and its Member States to work towards ensuring equal opportunities and promoting the rights and dignity of people with disabilities, especially those who are poor. Countries are requested to strengthen national policies and programmes on disability, including communitybased rehabilitation services. WHO is requested to support these efforts, and to collect more reliable data on all relevant aspects of disability, including the costeffectiveness of such interventions.

Specifically, the resolution calls upon the following: • Promoting early intervention and identification of disability, especially for children.

• Supporting the integration of community-based rehabilitation services into the health system.

• Facilitating development and access to appropriate assistive devices, including wheel chairs, hearing aids, prostheses, etc. which help to ensure the inclusion and participation of people with disabilities in their societies.

• Strengthening collaborative work on disability across the United Nations system and with Member States, academia, private sector and nongovernmental organizations, including disabled people’s organizations.

• Production and dissemination of a World report on disability and rehabilitation based on the best available scientific evidence.

Q2: Is universal design really necessary or functionally more helpful for the future?

A2: Universal Design means Design for Everyone.

I would like to highlight three hypotheses to answer this question, which are like general predictions for the future instead of hard-core facts.

Number One: Tomorrow’s society will be older, more varied and more difficult to trim down to a consensus.

To answer this, it is worth recalling last century’s view of the future. A car that ran on atomic power did not seem impossible or even dangerous; it was inevitable. The Ford Nucleon was designed to travel up to 8,000 kilometers. The nuclear reactor beneath the extended front did not even change the car’s design very much. In 1957, it even became more feasible to have a car without a driver. It was designed to travel along rails above an empty highway. It is a view of the 1950’s but also a view of the future.

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We have relinquished the steering wheel, but the nuclear car proved a technical dead end that belongs to the past. What the future will look like is still unclear. But not the powers that fuel it.

Number Two: The future will not be won with more equipment or more intelligent features, but with products that can make life easier.

It is not about developing more hearing aids or wheelchairs. Medical supplies design will remain as a specialized niche, even in the future. I am highlighting the possibility of over-aging, the possibility of perhaps the most critical and wealthiest social stratum exacting new standards that will be simplified, clearer and more helpful. Things will not be tailored only towards a new specific target group. Universal products will exist again for the first time since Henry Ford exhibited the process of mass production to the public – things that merge aesthetics, ergonomics, comfort and cool lines. They are classy and forgive the odd operational error. If I can no longer operate the key board, I will switch the computer to speech mode or use my finger on the monitor.

Number Three: Perspectives will shift fundamentally.

We will not develop a more aerodynamic Rollator, but rather build houses and spaces that are accessible to all. The house will no longer be a rigid fortress, but rather a temporarily convertible structure, that adapts to single families and seniors. The senior market is a growth market. Japan recognized this a long time ago. METI, the powerful Ministry for Economy, Trade, and Industry recognized the senior economy long ago as a driving force and circulated the motto ‘changing population aging into a growth machine.’

From Panasonic to the cosmetic giants, the seniors are respected as valuable customers worth attracting by means of product innovations and campaigns.

Japan tackles the challenge of aging in such a way that the amenities of a low-barrier or even a barrier-free environment and new, intuitively operable, simple appliances can be a benefit to all. The resonant prejudice that we harbor towards senior-friendly or people with disability friendly, or in other words “senile” products, does not exist. Japan has been producing so called Kyoyo hin products, or ‘universally usable’ goods that fulfill all the requirements of Universal Design.

Q3: Since design for disability is very case specific and changes rapidly according to the key requirements, will universal design solutions make spaces and products more universally accessible for people with disability as well?

A3: A common assumption is that accessibility requires a redundancy of different sensory media. A definition of design for the whole population can also imply a flexible functionality, because different people may want to do different things. But the tendency to try to be all things to all people can lead to complex, compromised and confusing products.

The distinctions between inclusive design and design for special needs can be very challenging. Resonances can sometimes exist between the needs of people with a particular impairment and those of so-called ablebodied people in particular circumstances. Blurring these boundaries could change business models, but then demands a standard of design that a 20

Mrinalini Sardar | PGDPD. GD 2010-2013 | National Institute of Design

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

consumer market expects. Conversely, within populations of people with particular impairments, there may exist a diversity of attitudes toward their disability itself and about other issues. These cultural divisions should sometimes be respected and designed within, not across.

Factors affecting design while Designing for Disability: Ability: When designing for disabled people there is a tendency to focus on ability and disability. A distinction is sometimes made between a supposedly negative emphasis on disability and an affirming emphasis on ability, but in either case the issue of ability can dominate. So while designing for special needs, the user group determined is usually described in terms of a particular impairment that they share but inclusive design is generally discussed in terms of the number of people in the population within the ranges of abilities accommodated. If we focus on this perspective, then the market is constantly being defined and divided primarily along the lines of ability.

Definitions of disability have become broader over the last few decades. World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledges that every human being can experience some degree of disability. This further blurs the boundaries between people with disabilities and the so-called able-bodied people. But in the same document WHO’s definition on ‘general products and technology’ and ‘assistive products and technology’ remain quite distinct. Perhaps more could be done to blur the boundaries between mainstream design and design for disability.

Identity: By defining people in terms of their ability, there also runs a risk of stereotyping populations of people who share a particular disability, but may otherwise be as diverse as the population as a whole. A shared disability does not preclude a diversity of culture, tastes, wealth, temperament, education, values, attitudes and priorities. Clearly design for disability has focused more on the clinical than the cultural diversity within any group. The same prostheses or wheel chairs and communication devices are often offered to people with a particular disability regardless of their age or attitudes.

Q4: Should ‘Designing for people with disability’ always be kept in mind while planning spaces even though it might incur more cost?

Q5: Does the design of medical devices for people with disability always want to hide something or is it something to be ashamed of? For example medical-looking devices are molded from pink plastic in an attempt to camouflage them against the skin? / Does the medical model of disability further marginalize people with disability from mainstream society.

Q6: Even after the United Nations has published a detailed design manual for a barrier free environment called ‘Accessibility for the Disabled’, why do architects and designers not follow these basic principles before planning the architecture?

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Q7: Does fashion play an important role while designing for disability?

Fashion, on the other hand, might be seen as being largely concerned with creating and projecting an image: making wearers look good to others and feel better about themselves.

A7: Eyewear is one market in which fashion and disability overlap. On the rare occasions that the words design and disability are mentioned in the same breath, glasses are often referred to as the exemplar of a product that addresses a disability, yet with little or no social stigma attached. This positive image for disability has been achieved without invisibility.

The evolution of glasses from medical appliance to fashion accessory challenges the notion that discretion is always the best policy. Hearing aids, prostheses, and many other products could be inspired by this example.

More confident and accomplished design could support more positive images of disability.

Eyewear has come about by adopting not just the language of fashion but also its culture. If medical design wishes to emulate this success, it needs to appreciate that fashion often moves forward through extreme and even controversial work, and to welcome this influence within design for disability.

We have to do more to attract fashion designers to collaborate on designs for people with a disability, and bring their perspectives to both the practice and the culture of inclusive design. At times this will expose cultural differences, but these are healthy tensions, well worth embracing and harnessing.

Q8: Are there interventions in designing of medical devices, wherein the idea is not of suppression of disability but to that of embracing it with normalcy?

A8: Hearing Aids don’t obscure the face; there are strong traditions of ear adornment and jewelry in most cultures; and we all reach for earphones and headphones from time to time. But somehow, rather than adopting a diversity of design approaches, the hearing technology industry has remained conservative.

That is why RNID, the British charity for the deaf and hard of hearing, and Blueprint, the architecture and design magazine, launched Hearwear, a project in which leading designers considered hearing aids and hearing technology from a fresh perspective.

Product and furniture designer Ross Lovegrove’s design, The Beauty of Inner Space, mixes organic forms appropriate for a prosthesis with carbon composite and gold. Like jewelry, the design seeks to complement the body rather than attempt to be camouflaged against it. The earphones are recessed to present an ear apparently open to sounds from the outside world, whereas a more convex form might have signaled that the wearer is listening to something else.

The Wear Head Phone is an enormous set of headphones with a military camouflage paint job. Whatever the technical justification for their size, they also represent a supreme gesture of self-confidence—the antithesis of current hearing aids. The camouflage is a reference to street culture, but could also serve as an ironic commentary on the attempted camouflage of pink plastic hearing aids that are conspicuous but pretend to be invisible.

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Mrinalini Sardar | PGDPD. GD 2010-2013 | National Institute of Design

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

Conclusion:

To conclude my research paper I would like to elaborate on the following: • A multi-faceted approach is needed for people with disability to realize their full individual potential and to maximize their social and economic contribution to society. Strengthening preventive and curative health care services, ensuring inclusion in education, and increasing the participation of disabled in the workplace will be essential. Also critical will be improvements in available information on disability and reducing stigma about disability. Efforts to minimize disability (e.g. immunization, early detection, better outreach for rehabilitation) will be critical, but more effective efforts to ensure inclusion of people with disability in basic services (e.g. inclusive education, health, social protection programs) will also be required.

In some areas, this will require more public resources, but the fiscal impacts of even significant proportional increases will be negligible and fiscally supportable.

• Although improvements are needed in a number of areas, interventions will need to be prioritized and sequenced, if the agenda for promotion inclusion of people with disabilities is to be realized. India’s implementation capacity is generally weak in a number of areas of service delivery, which are most critical to improving the situation of people with disabilities. Obvious priorities include: (i) preventive care, both for mothers through nutritional interventions, and infants through both nutrition and basic immunization coverage; (ii) identifying people with disabilities as soon as possible after onset. The system needs major improvements in this most basic function; (iii) major improvements in early intervention, which can cost effectively transform the lives of disabled people and their families, and their communities; and (iv) expanding the under-developed efforts to improve societal attitudes to people with disabilities, relying on public-private partnerships that build on successful models already operating in India.

• While both public and NGO institutions are important, informal institutions – primarily the family – remain the most important factor in the lives of People with disabilities. Families – particularly the women in families – play a critical role in providing support to PWD. The family is not however an unambiguous source of support for People with Disabilities (PWD) in several ways: (i) it may be over-protective; (ii) it may – consciously or not – favour non-disabled household members; and (iii) it may be a direct source of harm to the PWD member (as evidence on physical and sexual abuse of disabled women indicates). There is a major awareness raising agenda on disability among family members of PWD, and even among people with disabilities themselves.

• The provisions on access for people with disabilities in the PWD Act are framed as contingent entitlements, but the nature of the legal obligations is somewhat vague. Indeed, there are no specific enforcement provisions or sanctions for failure of authorities to be proactive in undertaking their obligations under the Act. Nor is a mechanism spelt out for how authorities should move to implement the Act’s provisions, e.g. amendment of bye-laws etc. While the PWD Act can be considered a starting point in promoting accessibility, there is clearly a significant need to build on it.

• There is much evidence, both quantitative and anecdotal to indicate that accessibility for PWD remains a largely unrealized goal in India to date. One of the major issues in promoting access for people with disabilities is that of institutional coordination. Particularly for the built environment, there are in most cases a range of line agencies and other local authorities responsible for infrastructure.

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This frequently results in no single agency considering itself responsible for making the built environment accessible, and/or problems with very partial accessibility in the face of uncoordinated action. The institutional issues in promoting access reflect deeper challenges of accountability. In this respect, the PWD Act itself is not of great use in terms of establishing clear lines of accountability for ensuring that accessibility standards are adhered to. A further important weakness in improving accountability has been the general lack of consultation with people with disabilities themselves in prioritizing investments to promote access, and in monitoring access outcomes.

Conclusively, I would add there is more to barrier-free planning and construction than regulations and statements of requirements. It expresses a basic belief in social integration for everyone. ‘Design for All’ or ‘Universal Design’ really means answering the day-to-day needs and requirements of people with impairments, with the focus on recognizing and eliminating barriers. Promoting sensitivity to the needs of people with disability is a farreaching social issue.

Architects and engineers, whose plans have a major role in shaping people’s everyday surroundings, can create the right conditions for a world with minimal barriers. General planning advice and parameters applying to the specific situation contained in regulations and in law must be consulted.

There are however no cut-and-dried barrier-free planning solutions. The planner should try to find individual, long-term solutions tailored to the user and the construction project. While barrier-free buildings help the target group, their flexibility and sustainability also benefit all users.

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Mrinalini Sardar | PGDPD. GD 2010-2013 | National Institute of Design

Research Colloquium: Beyond Barriers

Bibliography: Books:

Pullin, G. (2011). Design meets Disability. United States of America: M.I.T Press.

Norman, D.A. (2002). The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books.

Skiba, I. & Zuger, R. (2005). Basics Barrier-Free Planning. Germany. Birkhauser.

Goldsmith, S. (1997). Designing for the Disabled: The New Paradigm. Oxford, United Kingdom: Architectural Press.

Herwig, O. & Bruce, L. (2008). Universal Design: Solutions for Barrier-free Living.

Germany. Birkhauser.

Hall, P. & Imrie, R. (2001). Inclusive Design: Designing and Developing Accessible Environments. London. Spon Press.

Fischer, J. & Meuser, P. (2009). Accessible Architecture: Construction and Design manual. Germany. DOM Publishers.

JStor Resources:

Das, D. & Agnihotri, S.B. (Dec. 26, 1998 - Jan. 1, 1999). Physical Disability: Is There a Gender Dimension? Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 33, No. 52, pp. 3333-3335 Wolf, D.A., Hunt, K. & Knickman, J. (2005). Perspectives on the Recent Decline in Disability at Older Ages. The Milbank Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 3, pp. 365-395 Schoeni, R.F., Liang, J., Joann, B., Sugisawa, H., Fukaya, T., & Kobayashi, E. (March, 2006). Trends in Old Age Functioning and Disability in Japan, 1993-2002. Population Studies, Vol. 60, No. 1, pp. 39-53 Ghai, A. (2002). Disabled Women: An Excluded Agenda of Indian Feminism. Hypatia, Vol. 17, No. 3, Feminism and Disability, Part 2 (Summer, 2002), pp. 49-66

Website / Webpage:

(May 2007). The World Bank Report on ‘People with Disabilities in India: From Commitments to Outcomes. Retrieved April 30, 2012 from http://www.worldbank. org.in/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/INDIAEXTN/0,,contentMDK:21 557057~pagePK:1497618~piPK:217854~theSitePK:295584,00.html Universal Design 101. Retrieved April 30, 2012 from http://universaldesign101. weebly.com/index.html Retrieved April 30, 2011 from http://www.disabilityindia.com/ Pulin, G., Design meets Disability. Retrieved May 1, 2012 from http://mitpress.mit. edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11673 Ministry of Social Affairs: National Committee for the Disabled and ESCWA (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia). Accessibility for the Disabled - A Design Manual for a Barrier Free Environment. Retrieved on May 1, 2012 from http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/designm/

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