Equality of Experience

“It is sensation – mediated by experience and culture – that shapes our responses to spaces.”

Malnar and Vodvarka – Sensory Design

With the final part of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) coming into force in October this year, pressure is increasing on local authorities to make their parks fully accessible. To improve access provision within tight budgetary constraints, it seems increasingly important to be able to assess just which open spaces offer the best value in order to plan access improvements.

Access audits will point out all the issues faced by people with mobility difficulties. Many will highlight wayfinding and other informational issues which must be addressed. However, unless the quality of experience offered by a place is understood, there is a real danger that costly access improvements may be made that are rarely if ever used.

people surrounded by planting in Cleveland Botanical Garden Ramps alone do not an experience make, unless maybe you’re a skateboarder.

Sensory Trust believes strongly in what it calls Equality of Experience. The focus of much of the DDA is physical or intellectual access. The rush to build ramps and provide literature in Braille often overlooks quality of experience. Perhaps quality of experience is easy to dismiss as ‘nice to have’ but not essential. Sensory Trust would argue that quality of experience is central to the spirit of the DDA. In the same way as disabled people should expect the same standard of goods and services from suppliers, so we should expect the same quality of experience from parks and open spaces.

One approach to ensuring equality of experience is to assess which areas offer the best experiences, and to make sure that these are accessible, developing a rolling programme of access improvements beginning with the best of these sites.

Another approach is to look at which sites already have good access, and assess the quality of experience of these sites. By looking at the elements that go together to create places that people enjoy, feel proud of, relax and socialise in, it may be possible to tweak these elements to improve the quality of experience for people for whom the site currently holds little attraction.

Experience is a complex admixture of sensory stimulation, weather, service, what you had for breakfast, comfort, who you meet, your state of mind and a hundred other things. Open space owners, managers and designers aren’t responsible for what you had for breakfast, but they are responsible for the quality of your experience.

Sensory Trust would argue that a ramp that allows easy access to an empty civic square with no seating, no one in it, and no reason to linger is a waste of resources.

Any work undertaken to fulfill obligations set out by the DDA should deal not only with getting in to a place, but should take the opportunity to make sure the place is one that you would want to get into - not just out of.

The Sense of Place conference deals with the issue of Equality of Experience in depth. Drawing on examples from around the world, speakers will explore the issues surrounding the design and management of successful places: landscape, scent, colour, art and events. With a selection of great speakers and some spectacular locations it should prove to be an entertaining and informative event.