Do You Know What's Friendly : What's Accessibility

Infants and children are at a vulnerable stage in their young lives and are usually treated as special persons requiring care in both physical and cognitive functions. Family-friendly features such as wider corridors for prams, nursing room and appropriate anthropometric scale of furniture and sanitary fixtures are highly recommended for the convenience of their caregivers.

Expectant mothers experience various physiological and emotional changes during pregnancies. Some of the more common symptoms are fatigue, lower backache and difficulties in walking and balancing. It is recommended that handrails for additional support and seating should be generously provided on travel routes and waiting areas.

The elderly are usually characterized by a high probability of disease with low cognitive and physical function capacity. Day-to-day activities that cause problems for the elderly include tasks related to indoors and outdoor mobility, which require physical strength and sustained effort. To enable an active engagement with life, provisions such as extra handrails for support, slip-resistant flooring and adaptation of more elderly-friendly features should be provided for a more independent lifestyle.

Wheelchair users often face difficulties with negotiating change in levels and manoeuvring their wheelchairs in confined and congested spaces. It is important to design the built-environment with accessibility features such as ramps with gentle gradients, accessible lifts and toilets that address the needs of wheelchair users while providing signage to guide them to such facilities.

Persons with temporary or permanent ambulant disabilities are likely to experience unstable or slow movement. Special consideration should be given to ensure ease of access and movement for ambulant disabled persons between and within public areas by the careful provision, location and design of parking areas, paths, kerbs, pedestrian crossings, street furniture, open space and sanitary facilities.

The visually impaired rely on what little vision they have together with other aids to find their way around. Physical and sensory cues such as tactile or audible information are therefore important aids for visually impaired persons to move around independently.

It is important to understand the unique needs of the hearing impaired. As they are unable to receive audio information, all communication should be initiated through other means, such as substituting audio alerts with visual alerts and allowing for the configuration of the frequency and volume of audible cues.