Notes on an accessible cafeteria

As part of the Service and Experience Design Workshop at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, I visited Enable India to attend a talk raising awareness on disability. Enable India is a registered charitable trust working towards empowering persons with disability. They train and place persons with visual impairment, hearing impairment, physical disability and other disabilities. The talk was held in the cafeteria of Enable India.

I was intrigued by the below design for their accessible cafeteria.

It is a tactile map of the cafeteria with switches to spot empty chairs for the blind.

How does it work?

Press the switch upward for allocation of seat before occupied and press it downwards after vacating the seat.

After the session, I waited to observe how the students interacted with the tactile map and the cafeteria space. Though the design of the tactile map seemed thoughtful, the reality was that the switches were of very little help.

The chairs and tables were arranged like in the map. The visually impaired students came in pairs or in groups and sat down on the available chairs. The students who came in alone called out the names of their friends and sat beside them.

The above mentioned switch design failed to consider the social context and social needs of the students. The design assumed that a visually impaired person would just want to know where there is an empty seat, occupy it and get done with lunch. But in reality, they come in groups and sit together with their friends just like any abled person would do.

My takeaways

As designers, we need to challenge our notions and assumptions about people with disabilities.

There is an opportunity for a design intervention here, taking into consideration the social interactions that a cafeteria enables.