When we design for disabilities, we make things better for everyone.
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When we design for disabilities, we make things better for everyone. This is called the Curb-Cut Effect. The term was coined by disability students and activists in the 70s, who added curb cuts to the Berkeley sidewalks to make access easier for those in wheelchairs. They discovered those also helped people with strollers, using trolleys for deliveries, etc.
They are great if placed properly.
Both routes from my home to the town centre include a stretch of narrow pavement with a steep dropped kerb (curb cut in American?).
There is no level section on one, on the other it's about 15cm wide.
No safe way to drive across it, or to turn onto it to cross the road.
They could have put the crossings at wider stretch of pavement.There is one alternative, driving a longer route that includes pavements in a light industrial area with very steep kerbs, no dropped kerbs, and vans or lorries parked everywhere. I'd have to drive my 4mph chair in the middle of the road.
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When we design for disabilities, we make things better for everyone. This is called the Curb-Cut Effect. The term was coined by disability students and activists in the 70s, who added curb cuts to the Berkeley sidewalks to make access easier for those in wheelchairs. They discovered those also helped people with strollers, using trolleys for deliveries, etc.
@stephaniewalter Here in Berlin, the local trash pickup service puts ramps onto streets so they can roll the trash containers easily downstairs, and they put signs onto those saying they're primarily for trash but should of course also be used by wheelchair users and strollers, and I find that beautiful.
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@stephaniewalter I love that I now know the NAME for this, and can explain how accessibility infrastructure isn't wasted.
@Skulldog@socel.net @stephaniewalter@front-end.social accessibility infrastructure is not wasted, not because of the benefit it provides to anyone else, but because it makes things accessible for people who need it. -
A more modern example would be captions in videos: they are a feature designed for deaf and hard of hearing people, but also benefits people with ADHD and auditory processing disorder, people who want to listen to a video without sound for various reasons, etc.
Illustration by Sketchplanations: https://sketchplanations.com/the-curb-cut-effect
@stephaniewalter Or the existence of text messages. When mobile phones (cell phones) were first coming into use in the late 80s and early 90s, they were intended for voice calls only. The Deaf community advocate hard for adding text messages to the standards by default. The companies weren't keen, but eventually it was done. And I think we can agree that text messaging turned out to be kind of important to the vast majority of people!
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@stephaniewalter Of you would like more examples then Microsoft has an introduction to inclusive design which has a bunch along those lines which I like.
https://inclusive.microsoft.design/tools-and-activities/Inclusive101Guidebook.pdf
This diagram is taken from there.
@coreworlder @stephaniewalter Who knew viking warriors has such heavy accents!
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@stephaniewalter Of you would like more examples then Microsoft has an introduction to inclusive design which has a bunch along those lines which I like.
https://inclusive.microsoft.design/tools-and-activities/Inclusive101Guidebook.pdf
This diagram is taken from there.
@coreworlder @stephaniewalter the Museum of Science Boston did some really cool work on universal design, but I can't find much about it now.
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When we design for disabilities, we make things better for everyone. This is called the Curb-Cut Effect. The term was coined by disability students and activists in the 70s, who added curb cuts to the Berkeley sidewalks to make access easier for those in wheelchairs. They discovered those also helped people with strollers, using trolleys for deliveries, etc.
Thanks for sharing this. Learning from it and sharing. Slowly learning about disABILITY MUNDUS and this seems to be one manifestation of the principle.
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A more modern example would be captions in videos: they are a feature designed for deaf and hard of hearing people, but also benefits people with ADHD and auditory processing disorder, people who want to listen to a video without sound for various reasons, etc.
Illustration by Sketchplanations: https://sketchplanations.com/the-curb-cut-effect
@stephaniewalter in my case: parents who don’t want to wake up their young kids because the TV was too loud
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@stephaniewalter in my case: parents who don’t want to wake up their young kids because the TV was too loud
@listrophy same here sometimes, making the sound super low to not wake up people in the house
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@stephaniewalter Of you would like more examples then Microsoft has an introduction to inclusive design which has a bunch along those lines which I like.
https://inclusive.microsoft.design/tools-and-activities/Inclusive101Guidebook.pdf
This diagram is taken from there.
@coreworlder @stephaniewalter
Microsoft likes to claim pieces of the public domain as private property. The first I noticed was the ".doc" file extension as an indication of the file belonging to their proprietary word processor, although it already had an established use in the industry. I hope whoever is making up these drawings is getting paid by Microsoft, and I hope that their chain of command believes that it is a wise business decision to do so. I sincerely hope that nobody else imagines that they will be intelligible to the generic human being. #Microsoft #monopoly #capitalism -
@listrophy same here sometimes, making the sound super low to not wake up people in the house
@stephaniewalter or really: keeping the TV quiet, so if one kid starts yelling for help (ugh, sure... I'll fix your blanket), I can hear them before they wake up the other kids
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@stephaniewalter Or the existence of text messages. When mobile phones (cell phones) were first coming into use in the late 80s and early 90s, they were intended for voice calls only. The Deaf community advocate hard for adding text messages to the standards by default. The companies weren't keen, but eventually it was done. And I think we can agree that text messaging turned out to be kind of important to the vast majority of people!
@johnpettigrew @stephaniewalter One thing that can get quite annoying: people that insist in commenting that people cannot talk via e.g. IRC or IM just because they're in the same room or next to each other.
Best case, it may be helping with organization or workflow, or with keeping distractions low. But it can also be preferrable for accessibility.
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@stephaniewalter@front-end.social raising that part of the road would be even better
@anemone @stephaniewalter whatever you do often also has some drawbacks, it's not always a one-way street.
Dropped curbs also tilt the pavement (US: sidewalk) near the drop so walking or rolling a buggy along them becomes more difficult, likewise for cyclists if they are shared.
Raised paths across roads create hazards (like speed bumps, sleeping policemen, except they extend to the curb) for vehicles, but in particular for cyclists using the road. -
@stephaniewalter@front-end.social raising that part of the road would be even better
@anemone @stephaniewalter There's also the problem of keeping the non-road sections level (e.g. sidewalk).
If there is insistence in keeping sidewalks raised compared to the rest of the road, what are the best practices to implement this without imposing cant on the sidewalk? Just that (raising the crosswalk part of the road), or are there other ways? (I guess one could also just lower the whole sidewalk, instead of just the edge near the crosswalk?)
(Cc:ing @drtcombs in case she is interested?)
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A more modern example would be captions in videos: they are a feature designed for deaf and hard of hearing people, but also benefits people with ADHD and auditory processing disorder, people who want to listen to a video without sound for various reasons, etc.
Illustration by Sketchplanations: https://sketchplanations.com/the-curb-cut-effect
@stephaniewalter I feel like the migration of things to video is one of those examples of things where capitalism has been damaging accessibility:
- Video is less portable, the file-sizes are larger, the algorithms -> I don’t think I know of anyone that has re-homed their published videos.
- Video is more painful for the consumer to adapt for accessibility.
- Video is harder to ad-block / skip-the-ads
- It’s harder to tell if video is BS or too shallow (platform & low-quality sources love this) -
When we design for disabilities, we make things better for everyone. This is called the Curb-Cut Effect. The term was coined by disability students and activists in the 70s, who added curb cuts to the Berkeley sidewalks to make access easier for those in wheelchairs. They discovered those also helped people with strollers, using trolleys for deliveries, etc.
There's a great 99% Invisible about curb cuts
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