https:\/\/tucson.com\/opinion\/local\/local-opinion-designing-a-world-for-everyone-to-use\/article_8c1dec36-a95f-11ec-a91c-0bba17ef925a.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nAfter watching the 2022 Beijing Paralympic Winter Games earlier this month, with athletes skiing down the slopes on one leg, I\u2019m reminded of the importance of universal design (UD).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
UD is the \u201cdesign and composition of an environment so that it can be accessed, understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people regardless of their age, size, ability or disability,\u201d according to the National Disability Authority, an organization based in Ireland dedicated to helping people participate in society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other words, UD is an ideal, a goal, that designers are continually working toward to make spaces more inclusive. If you live in a house that uses doorknobs, you\u2019ve probably had that frustrating experience of trying to open a door with wet hands or a bag of groceries. If your doors happen to have levers, however, you\u2019ve likely noticed the ease of access despite the wet hands, or the unwieldy load, or whatever it is that hinders the opening of the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Doorknobs are not, generally speaking, designed with the principles of UD in mind, while door levers are. In fact, doors are the perfect metaphor here since UD is an attempt to invite everybody in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I became aware of UD when I started teaching in college 10 years ago, though I have intuitively understood its importance since I sustained a traumatic brain injury in 1998 and became hemiplegic and neurodivergent in an instant. I was 18. The fact that most of the world didn\u2019t abide by the principles of UD was one of the reasons I felt so alone and out of place much of the time. And when we\u2019re 18, \u201calone\u201d and \u201cout of place\u201d are not feelings we want associated with our being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are seven principles of UD: equitable use; flexibility in use; perceptible information; simple and intuitive; low physical effort; size and space for approach and use; and tolerance for error. That last one is my favorite because it highlights the fact that this is life, and life sometimes gets messy. Most people aren\u2019t master chefs, so we often call for pizza delivery after failing at cooking something new. Most people don\u2019t have speechwriters, so we occasionally put our feet in our mouths. We are not perfect, nor should we expect others to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEquitable use\u201d means that the design does not favor only one body type, the tall, for example, so things like light switches aren\u2019t too high off the ground. Returning to why door levers exemplify UD: Dogs can learn to use them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSimple and intuitive\u201d means just that. Of course, what\u2019s simple and intuitive to one person may not be to another, which is why UD is a goal, something to work toward, always changing and requiring dedicated study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What\u2019s important is that UD recognizes that it is the environments we work or play in that create disability in the first place. To illustrate, let\u2019s profile Paralympic athlete and defenseman for USA\u2019s para sled hockey team, Ralph DeQuebec, who became a double leg amputee after encountering an explosive in Afghanistan in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He fearlessly slides down the ice rink and intercepts the puck, then quickly passes to his teammates. On the rink, he is a powerhouse, yet he would become disabled if the only access to his favorite restaurant were a flight of stairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That raises the question: Would a player from the Olympic hockey team become disabled on a Paralympic hockey rink? They\u2019d be slower and unaccustomed to the mechanics of play, and certainly they would not rise to the elite ranks any time soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a question that warrants more discussion, for sure. How can someone without their legs be more able-bodied than someone with full use of their legs? It\u2019s all a matter of how the game is constructed, and we live in a world that prizes the upright (and the thin, the tall, the smart \u2026) over their counterparts. It\u2019s a world that told me, years ago, that I didn\u2019t belong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Take a look at my most recent column published in the Arizona Daily Star! https:\/\/tucson.com\/opinion\/local\/local-opinion-designing-a-world-for-everyone-to-use\/article_8c1dec36-a95f-11ec-a91c-0bba17ef925a.html After watching the 2022 Beijing Paralympic Winter Games earlier this month, with athletes skiing down …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9,10,8,7],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","tag-access","tag-accessibility","tag-paralympics","tag-universal-design"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/khoggattabader.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/space.jpg?fit=682%2C1023&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/khoggattabader.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/khoggattabader.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/khoggattabader.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/khoggattabader.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/khoggattabader.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/khoggattabader.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43,"href":"https:\/\/khoggattabader.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions\/43"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/khoggattabader.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/khoggattabader.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/khoggattabader.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/khoggattabader.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}