#and now there's multiple levels and elevators that make easy access to the overpass

[falloutsgraygarden]

Took a sec, but Graygarden has started going up 🌸✨

[jackiefeims1]

Final Paper

As a close relative of a stroke victim who remained half-paralyzed after his brain surgery, I have witnessed every inconvenient aspect of his life and the hard adjustments he and his family had to make. My relative, Peter, lives in a provincial city in northern China, where he worked as a patent attorney at his own agency. Before the accident, Peter loved to explore the city on his bike, he was also a photography enthusiast who would go on hiking trips with his photographer friends every other week to capture the beauty of the countryside. Nowadays, however, Peter could barely leave his apartment building in his wheelchair without the aid of his care-taker - thanks to three steps of stairs at the entrance of his apartment building. Even if he manages to go out, he is unable to visit many places due to accessibility problems.  

Peter is not the only wheelchair user whose life quality has significantly worsened simply because they sit in a wheelchair. Over the past eight years, sadly, Peter has gotten very used to being stared and yelled at for moving too slowly and blocking the way in public.  Inconsiderately designed spaces cause mobility troubles not only for people with disabilities, but also other able-bodied individuals when, for example, a wheelchair user has to block the entire staircase so that they can be lifted by two other people downstairs. In such kind of situations, the disabled are often the ones to be blamed as accessibility issues may be too subtle to be realized by the able bodied. What they do not see is that a problem like this can be easily solved if the space is equipped with a proper wheelchair lift.

I was shocked to realize how underdeveloped many countries and regions are when it comes to accessibility. Statistic data shows that about 40% of the world population today rely on a wheelchair or have to sit in a wheelchair at some point in their life. However, this relatively large percentage of our population is not reflected in current design disciplines in many ways.  The lack of empathy towards the disabled often causes the group to be neglected and disrespected. Ideally, a considerately designed space should ensure that wheelchair users can navigate themselves comfortably with as little aid from other individuals as possible. Unfortunately, even in some major cities of developed countries, wheelchair users and their families must make very great efforts to accomplish the smallest tasks every single day.

Accessibility issue in public spaces has raised the attention of many leading companies in the tech industry, many apps and software have been developed to improve the life of wheelchair users.  Google, for example, has recently added a new feature to their map system allowing users to contribute accessibility information of places they have visited. In fact, I have also made prototypes of an app that allows the user to customize their routine to avoid barriers such as stairs, steep hills and bumpy roads based on information contributed by other users. As I look at these apps that utilize crowdsourcing to provide information for wheelchair users, I started wondering how would able-bodied users be motivated to mark accessibility information that do not directly benefit their life? Will people contribute at all if they cannot even tolerate a clumsy wheelchair user accidentally blocking their way in real life?

Understanding and tolerance must come before problem solving. My final project of Major Studio 1 is an interactive choice driven narrative in which players play the role of a wheelchair user and complete a small task in a familiar environment setting – going to a destination in a shopping mall within 10 minutes’ walk from his/her hotel. As the player moves forward, they have to make decisions as they run into different kinds of obstacles – all of which are incredibly easy to overcome for able-bodied people. My goal for this project is to challenge the able-bodied users to understand the inconvenience and frustrations wheelchair users experience everyday, and therefore promote empathy towards this usually ignored minority group. The project is web-based and is told from a first person narrative. Multiple decisions must be made as the user goes through the narrative.

What I am most eagerly to demonstrate in my project is the gap between the reality and our naïve assumptions of wheelchair users’ life. There are some moments in the narrative when the user has no other choice but to click “wait” and “suck it up” buttons repetitively, as time overpasses, their anxious level and tiredness level increase as indicated by numbers and graphs on the side of each page. There are also moments in the narrative when the user must make concessions that can be otherwise spared if the place has better accessibility: taking a detour under the bright sunshine because they cannot get off the curb, having to dine at a bad restaurant because the good ones have stairs they cannot get up … etc. The key word of this narrative is discomfort and pressure, it is not designed for fun but to put the user into the wheelchair of others, to experience the frustrations they experience when all choices given are imperfect solutions to their problems and therefore come to realize how many times we able-bodied have underestimated the challenges they face and overestimated their ability to move in some challenging situations.

I was greatly inspired by the scavenger hunting game documented in the Smithsonian Museum report as part of the institution’s docent training program. At each training session, docents were required to complete a series of simple tasks such as taking the elevator, locating a telephone and call someone, using the water fountain with their eyes covered or sitting in a wheelchair. These challenges were designed to help docents to better understand the needs of disabled visitors, as well as to ensure the accessibility of museums facilities.

Another source that inspired my project was a short documentary as part of  a campaign by ChallengeAccess.com. In the video, TV present Kathryn, who is able-bodied, took the challenge and put herself in a wheelchair to tour around the city of Dublin. After some serious struggling moments, Kathryn said:

“I would never have noticed that bin there before, I’ve never have noticed that bicycle tied up to the pole… It’s almost like I get into a panic about what decisions to make. All I’m trying to do is to get from A to B. I shouldn’t be panicking about it, but that’s really what I felt. Do I swallow my pride and ask for help? Should that be an issue?”

Under Kathryn’s video, some viewers suggested that wheelchair users shouldn’t have made the decision of going there if they knew the city was not equipped with wheelchair friendly facilities. When I went out with Peter this summer, someone also approached us and told him that he should not take the subway because it’s a hustle for both him and other passengers. Accessibility is not just a problem at stake for the wheelchair community, but also for a great majority of our society - parents with baby strollers and senior citizens who need walking aid will all benefit greatly from accessible spaces.  I hope my project can help the non-disabled understand the need and frustrations of the disabled in a personal and intimate way, and therefore raise public awareness and empathy towards this group of people.

Research Sources:

Sharpe, Elizaheth. "Docents Experience Museum Visit as Disabled Visitors." Roundtable Reports 6, no. 3 (1981): 6-7. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40479703.

Steinfeld, Edward, Maisel, Jordana, and Levine, Danise. Universal Design : http://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/fooc/2015/04/150430_fooc_china_wheelchairCreating Inclusive Environments (pgs 4-25).

Hoboken, US: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2012. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 28 December 2016: https://home.nyu.edu/research

 Design Meets Disability, Graham Pulin (2009). Chapter 6 Feeling Meets Testing  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Hfk0CEa0BodnF0TlI2b2NnUTI2bHE3dGt2TkRuYmhSYzkw/view?usp=sharing

https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/08/google-maps-now-lets-users-add-wheelchair-accessibility-details-for-locations/