Inclusive Action Group

Meeting 9

Accessible Information & Communications

Sefton Park Palmhouse, Liverpool, 23rd November 2004

Lars Stenberg from the Sensory Trust kicked off the day with an overview of accessible information. Just what is it, and why is it important? We are all familiar with accessible information: finding products in the supermarket or words in an encyclopaedia both rely on accessible information.

Sensory Trust research published in 'Making Connections: a guide to accessible greenspace' shows that the second most common reason preventing disabled people from visiting outdoor spaces is lack of information. Improving this information gap is a very cost-effective way of improving the overall accessibility of a site.

Good information is part of the Access Chain. Full access is a chain of events that begins with the decision to visit and ends with the safe return home. Most decisions to visit a site are made at home, and it is this off-site information that people rely on to know if a site is worth visiting, if it is welcoming, and if it is accessible.

Accessible information has three basic components: message, medium and distribution. Media may include Braille, Large Print or Audio, but it should not be forgotten that staff with disability awareness training can be the best medium of all. The message may vary, but access information should be present on leaflets and other publicity material as a matter of course. The information should be appropriate and useful. Distribution is often the poor relation in this process. Targeted information needs targeted distribution channels. This means thinking about where people are most likely to see your leaflets, use local press and radio to reach specific communities. Making your information available on the web as downloadable plain text files allows different people to customise the way the information is presented, for example, changing font size or listening through text reading software to best suit themselves.

Different people will need different types of information in different formats, but if you make your standard information useful and accessible, this will dramatically cut down requests for other more expensive versions. Accessible information should be mainstream.

Next we heard from Elizabeth-Anne Williams, Director of the Sefton Park Palm House Preservation Trust. She talked about how she deals with the different issues of information with limited resources. She explained that the Trust works very closely with the city Parks department, in order to get the information out there and maintain the park and the Palm House. She was very keen to hear other ideas and suggestions on how to improve information.

Cate Detheridge and Tina Detheridge from Symdata and Widgit Software talked about the uses of symbols to support information provision for people with learning disabilities.

They talked about three different symbol sets in use in the UK: Rebus, PCS and Makaton. Each symbol set has its own particular uses, but the symbols come from a common root. The symbols used in Widgit software are designed to support written text. There are three different levels of Widgit symbol. The first are pictorial symbols such as an apple or a house. The next layer are “learnable” symbols, for instance, the symbol for a shop is the house symbol with a set of scales in it. If you already know house and scales, you can work out the symbol, even if you have not seen it before. The third layer is comprised of symbols for abstract concepts such as “independence”. It was pointed out that there are many people who can understand the concepts represented by such symbols, but have difficulty with the words.

Ticky Lowe, Learning Activities Officer at the National Wildflower Centre in Liverpool, talked about her own artwork, and about the projects she had created with different groups. Her artwork uses different materials to create objects - from giant seed pods to sofas - that play with the senses.

In her work at the national Wildflower Centre she uses art activities to explore the plants and insects at the centre with different groups of visitors. Pulling a plant apart to see how its structure works and then making a giant one from different materials helps people to understand how a plant works.

Paul Todd from the Civic Trust gave an overview of the Green Flag awards scheme. He explained with the judges look for when decided sites should be awarded a Flag. He went into some detail about accessibility of sites, and how this is a crucial factor in deciding if a site is to be awarded.

After lunch we did some practical work, using the Palmhouse as a working example. People came up with many suggestions for the information at the Palmhouse and then a lively discussion followed on the following themes:

Marketing
How do you get the information into people’s lives/homes/local shopping centres and so on?

• Showing people in publicity material – it can help to show to kinds of people you are appealing to in your publicity material. Subtle messaging can help people feel that your site will welcome them.
• Word of mouth is possibly the strongest marketing tool, particularly when aiming at specific communities.
• Local radio and newspapers are both good, and cost-effective, ways to reach people.

The venue
Venues should be ‘event-sensitive’. Find ways of sewing these places into people’s lives. These places should be habit-forming! Create a sense of loyalty and ownership: this place is yours to use! Regeneration of buildings and key attractions [in parks] will draw people, but only if they know those things are there.

Conclusions

There was a general consensus among the group that, while access for all remains an ideal, the scale of work needed for this should not put people off doing small pieces of access work that will eventually contribute to a whole. It is important to have an access policy and strategy in place to ensure that each small piece of access work will contribute to the plan.

It was felt that it was very useful to share information and experience through seminars such as the IAG, and what would be really helpful was a central point for information relating to all areas of inclusive design, and the development of examples of good practice.

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