Ride, Don't Walk: A Wheel Chair Experience

              My partner and I rode in a wheel chair throughout two school buildings and in between as a way to "take a step into someone else’s world" kind of like taking a walk in someone else's shoes, in order to see how a person in a wheel chair views the world and how a person with mobility challenges is accommodated in the environment. In my experience, I was asked to retrieve and/or experience every day encounters such as retrieving a magazine from the middle of a book shelf, order and receive a coffee from a coffee shop (in my case the shop was closed but I went through the motions anyway), and to attempt a use at the bathroom, elevator, and just everyday navigation. I came to find out that using a wheel chair is much harder than I had suspected, I used many muscles that I hadn’t known existed. I realized how much even the slightest incline or decline in ground effects how you get around, and I learned that the accommodations for those in a wheel chair are not very convenient nor common – making life in a wheel chair much more challenging than I had ever realized.
              When it comes to the designed environment accommodated people with different needs, for the most part it is to the average person that it is accompanying. Ordering counters are too high for those in a wheelchair, however, it’s not so high that you can’t work with it it’s just a huge inconvenience. As with the standard door widths throughout most buildings, they work for those in or not in a wheel chair, but are a little snug for those in a wheel chair. If it were affordable, I think that the designed environment should be accessible to everyone in a way that is not an inconvenience to those without mobility challenges, yet still allowing for easy accessibility for those who are.
             In my experience, I noticed that there were many places which were said to be “Handicap Accessible”, yet when encountering those spaces it seemed very troublesome. For example, entering into Daggy Hall on campus on the ground level was difficult because the handicap accessible door opening button was not working making opening the door myself very hard, as well as the ramp right inside the door was at such a steep grade that I rolled very fast down it and found it hard to stop myself. Also in the same hall, the bathroom which specified that it were a handicap accessible one was very difficult to use. There were railings in the slightly larger room which suggested use for someone with challenged mobility, however the stall was not nearly large enough to maneuver a wheel chair, nor was the bathroom as a whole large enough to get in and out and wash your hands. This made the whole experience a large eye opener because I had never really thought about the inconveniences that those with mobility challenges face on a daily basis.

Photo 1- This is the handicap accessible bathroom which shows how snug of a space you are in
Photo 2- This is the wheel of the wheel chair tight up to the wall in the sink area
Photo 3- This is the counter where you pick up your drink at the cafe which is very high
Photo 4- This is the view point from a wheel chair when ordering a drink at the coffee stand from a barista
Photo 5- This is me reaching for a magazine on the middle shelf of the book shelf and my view point from a wheel chair