Disability Justice & Accessibility「Joyful Experiences」

Our project focuses on the London Eye. We try to use design to help people with disabilities experience the London skyline with different senses and enjoy the process of riding the London Eye.

After integrating field research and discussion, we made a portable wearable device. We drew illustrations of city street scenes and presented the illustrations on the turntable in the form of relief.

The London Eye’s 360° viewing angle is divided into four sectors. Each sector not only represents the city landscape observed every 90° , but also symbolizes the change in perspective that the London Eye experiences every 90° as it slowly rises.

The board shows the scenery that can be seen when riding the London Eye, and the features of the objects are magnified through illustrations to make them more
recognizable. This not only makes it easier for the visually impaired to understand, but also strengthens the connection between people and the environment, weakens the coldness of the building, and makes the picture warmer.

We try to break the traditional visual viewing mode and allow the visually impaired to experience the London skyline through touch and audio, so that they can “watch” the city scenery independently.

We added sound elements to the design to allow visually impaired people to more intuitively experience the atmosphere of riding the London Eye and enhance their sense of immersion and participation. These sounds simulate the environment around the London Eye, including bells,birdsong, ferry sounds, etc., allowing the experiencer to “see” the scenery of the city through hearing.

Our engraved board is not only a visual representation of the landscape around the London Eye, but also a tactile map that allows the visually impaired to “feel” the city through their fingers. Different levels of relief distinguish the river, landmark buildings and key elements, making the touch experience clearer and more intuitive.

In the sound design, we added background conversations, bird calls, tourists laughing, street sounds, and camera shutter sounds to make the environment more vivid. In this way, the visually impaired can not only “touch” the landscape during the experience, but also feel the surrounding atmosphere through sound, which enhances the sense of immersion and reality.

Link of sound design:https://youtu.be/etuXgjqUyCc

This project made me understand that barrier-free design is expansion rather than restriction. Our goal is to enable people with disabilities to fully experience space without physical restrictions. After this course, I will continue to explore how to help people with disabilities transform different ways of perception through barrier-free design, so that everyone can experience and build their own urban memories equally.

Nice experience!

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Thanks for watching~

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