Less Inequality for Visually Impaired

Can you navigate a room by a handrail?

More than 55% Danes with severe visual impairment experience problems with physical access to public buildings. This project seeks to develop more accessible environments to ensure more well-being and inclusion for this population group.

The project has worked on promoting the navigational assistance in the physical surroundings, this resulted in a navigating handrail system that has small domes that works as indicators. Single domes indicate a navigating rhythm, so people can count their way through a space and then remember specific locations of the room by counting. Two domes indicate a change in the surroundings.

That could be the beginning and end of a staircase or when you reach the end of the handrail at an exit. This system is supported by a tactile flooring that consists of two different materials placed in a grid system, that by sound and feeling will inform the visually impaired about a position in the grid.