A low vision mother with her toddler attempt to cross a busy road with no zebra crossing to access a park.

Social Equity Is No Trip To The Park

Social equity is more than a theory. Exclusion comes in many forms: an interactive shopping centre map, a multi service lift access point, a self service appointment check-in desk. What do they all have in common you ask? Well, apart from usually being flat and indistinguishable touch screen devices of course, most of the time they do not have a text to speech provision built in, let alone activated for people who are blind or have low vision to utilise. Therefore, they decrease our sense of social equity just a little more with each encounter. However, it isn’t just the prevalence of technology as a wayfinding tool that invalidates my very presence in society as I attempt to navigate the built environment. In this case, it is the lack of a simple zebra crossing at a very busy intersection on the way to our local park. A park that has recently been upgraded, complete with full fencing, well thought out skill […]

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