Domain 11 Module: Environmental Accessibility (6 test questions) Flashcards
What is meant by Universal Design and how does it assist learners with visual
impairments?
Universal Design: process of creating products that are accessible to people with a wide range of abilities, disabilities, and other characteristics. Universally designed products accommodate individual preferences and abilities; communicate necessary information effectively (regardless of ambient conditions or the user’s sensory abilities); and can be approached, reached, manipulated, and used regardless of the individual’s body size, posture, or mobility. Application of universal design principles minimizes the need for assistive technology, results in products compatible with assistive technology, and makes products more usable by everyone, not just people with disabilities.
- Equitable Use: useful and marketable for people with diverse abilities, same means of use for all users
- Examples: power doors with sensors, integrated seating in public arenas - Flexibility in use: accommodates a wide range of preferences and abilities, provides choice in use based on hand preference, pace, etc.
- Examples: scissors made for ambidextrous use, ATM with braille, headphone jack, tapered opening - Simple and intuitive use: easy to understand, not complex, consistent with expectations, can be used regardless of language, information consistent with importance
Examples: moving sidewalks, instructions with pictures only - Perceptible Information: communicates necessary information effectively regardless of conditions or user’s sensory abilities
Examples: tactile, visual, audible cues on thermostat, voice communication and signs in airports or train stations - Tolerance for Error: minimizes hazards and adverse consequences of accidental use, provides warnings, designed to be fail safe
Examples: “undo” feature on computer software that allows errors to be fixed - Low Physical Effort: used efficiently and comfortably with minimum fatigue, neutral body position, reducing repetition
Examples: lever handles on doors, touch lamps - Size and space for approach and use: appropriate space provided for individual regardless of size, shape, posture, or mobility, clear line of sight to important elements, comfortable reach, accommodations for grip strength
Examples: wide gates at subways and train stations that accommodate all users
What is meant by the term “wayfinding”?
Moving purposefully through the environment toward a destination
Orientation in our complexly built environment is facilitated for all persons by information such as numbers on rooms, elevators, and buildings
Planning and strategic components that guide action, deliberate movement and the ability to reach a goal.
The three key design concepts?
- logical layout:
- visibility
- lighting
Users can anticipate locations of facilities such as stairs located next to elevators or men’s and women’s restrooms being adjacent to one another * Help all users solve orientation problems.
Logical layout
- Environments in which key features such as handrails, stair nosing’s (leading edges) and doors have high visual contrast with their surroundings and safer and more negotiable for all sighted, low vision, and blind persons.
- It is the ability of the learner to be able to see and an object
- Lighting can affect the learner’s visibility level by either having too much light or not enough
- The user can use the visibility of an object or an area to travel safer.
Visibility
- The amount of light that is provided by natural or artificial that can help or hurt a low vision learner
- represents the simple most critical problem for students with low vision student can struggle from night blindness and need more light to see
- Student can struggle from night blindness and need more light to see students may struggle with glare from too much lighting
- Photophobia affects the learner’s ability to see with bright lights or certain lights
- enhances visibility of signs and architectural features and does not cause glare or heavy shadows.
- optimal conditions varies per person, in general, persons with low vision are thought to need between 50 and 100% more lighting than the unimpaired person
Lighting
List three ingredients of sign legibility:
- Well-lit (no glare)
- Well placed (easy to locate, consistent)
- Well-designed (legible font, high contrast, easy to understand)
What is the recommended placement of an audible pedestrian signal (APS)?
no more than 10 feet from the curb line;
as close as possible to the line of the associated crosswalk that is farthest from the center of the intersection.
Additional devices should be at least 10 feet apart.
Explain the benefit of APS to a learner with a visual impairment.
a) Enable the traveler to cross the street with additional time
b) Audible information will be helpful for some travelers to locate which street is ready to be crossed
c) Vibrotactile arrow helps dual sensory impaired person
Describe the effectiveness of tactile guide strips when used at street crossings.
a) Aides person in maintaining line of travel especially useful are the ones with tactile strips on the outer wrung
b) Good information for the person about to step off the curb
Describe accessibility issues in transit stations and what modifications can be made to assist the learner with a visual impairment.
Issues:
Difficult to recognize which vehicle to enter, where person is when vehicle is in motion, deal with layovers, crowding, finding transfer points when changing vehicles, finding crossing point as to where cross when leaving or entering transit station
Lack of uniformity with and between the transit systems
The locations of bus stops vary from street to street. It is often difficult to determine bus numbers and routes.
The layout of the rail stations are inconsistent because everything such as platforms, exits, stairs, bathrooms, etc. vary from station to station.
Modifications:
Verbal, tactile maps, platform edge with DW or barriers, bus stop signs with Talking Signs
Tactile guidestrips indicate platform edges; Need to locate track number, audio announcements, high contrast/no glare
Technology such as RIAS, talking directories, auditory and tactile transit system maps, tactile pathways, accessible fare machines, and detectable warnings at platform edges can provide significant benefits.
Signage with high contrast, large-print raised letters and braille mounted at eye level in well-lit areas with predictable, consistent locations can improve accessibility at transit stations.
Describe the technology involved in purchasing a ticket in a modern transit system and the challenges for the learner with a visual impairment.
Many technologies exist ticket purchase equipment typically requires the user to follow a particular sequence to insert money, locate and press a number of buttons and remove a ticket.
In order to know the value of a ticket user may be required to read electronic messages
Turnstiles typically require that tickets be inserted in a particular direction in some locations, in order to purchase a ticket with the correct value for a specific trip, riders must locate their origin and destination on a map to determine the number of fare zones between them, or they must refer to table of fairs for different destinations.
Automatic tellers are required to be speech-enabled and braille instruction initiating the speech.
Explain how an O&M specialist could achieve an environmental modification that addresses barriers to accessibility.
Client and O&M instructor make a request to buildings or intersections through the owner of building or city
O&M instructor can follow up with a letter or demonstration of issues at intersection or in building
Request a review by an engineering authority.
Adapt stairs/lighting for contrast.
Communicate with site supervisors regarding needs
- U.S. guidelines limit the amount by which objects can protrude from a wall or from a signpost. Below 27 inches and above 80 inches
- Objects or signs may extend any distance into the hallway or sidewalk, as long as minimum passage width requirements are met
- Obstacles that have leading edges more than 27 inches above the floor or ground and lower than 80 inches above the floor or ground are not allowed to protrude into the travel path more than 4 inches
- ADA guidelines for post-mounted signs and objects are not consistent. ADA allows signs to protrude 12 inches from posts, while Draft PROWAG limits post-mounted objects to 4 inches maximum protrude
- Where there is no alternative to mounting a large sign on a pole, the sign should be mounted on two poles placed at both sides of the sign and a crossbar should connect the two poles at the height about 12 inches
protruding objects
- In general, stairs are considered to be safest and easiest to negotiate when treads and risers are at a moderate width and height and the dimensions are the same for the full width of each stair and for the entire length of a staircase
- When handrails are continuous on both the inside and outside of the staircase and when the ends of handrails protrude horizontally about 1 foot beyond the top and bottom of the stairs, the ends of handrails must be rounded and returned to the wall, floor, or a post in such a way that they do not become protruding objects.
- Adequate lighting at stairs is also important for visual recognition of stair locations.
- It is extremely helpful if the nosing, the front edge, of stairs contrast visually with the treads and risers.
- Draft PROWAG specifies a minimum 2-inch strip at the front of each tread that contrasts visually with the tread and riser
Stairs
