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Physical and sensory access alone is not my ideal end goal for universal design. I went someplace recently where there was some great physical access for disabled people, but there were unwelcoming, infantalizing comments made about disability many times, and who wants to be around that? Or another recent place had great physical access but not much for cognitive access, which ended up leaving me feeling excluded sometimes. All that said, I’m still a huge fan of deaf and disabled access and access for all. It’s impossible to express how important it is that accessibility be part of daily life.

I went to the UK last week and actually snapped a few photos that aren’t of cats or birds and thought I’d share them here. I don’t know how accessibility plays out in the UK, and I didn’t talk to anyone who used the access features pictured below. It’s really just that I liked how they’re embedding statements about accessibility in daily practice, just part of how things are done. I’m posting these in order of appearance on my trip, not in order of importance.

This shows a parking lot with only eight slots. All eight are designated accessible, and they all have yellow lines painted between them to leave space for accessible van ramps. Then, two rows of bike racks with roll-down rain and snow covers.  There weren’t many accessible rooms in the dorm, but you could park. And if you bike, your bike wouldn’t rust as quickly in the northern, coastal weather!

At Tesco, I found an array of medicines all with Braille on the boxes. I’ve never encountered that in the US. Here’s my finger touching the box of a Tesco brand cold and flu relief medicine. Text on the box lists the active ingredients in white lettering and in Braille. I didn’t buy that one, but I did get an overly sweet decongestant syrup that also had Braille on the box. If you happen to be listening to this, you might hear that the sweet stuff hasn’t worked, but it is sweet.

Here’s the inside of a Manchester taxi door. It has a bright yellow grab bar and some switches. There’s a sign with “Hearing Loop. Switch hearing aid to t-position.” A red light is lit, and it says, “Red light indicates doors are secured.” A hearing loop inside a damn taxi. All right, taxis!

A very large image of the universal access logo of the stick figure in a wheelchair. Below that, it says, “Not every disability is visible. Accessible toilet.” Then, the standard images showing male, female, and disabled user. It doesn’t account for gender diversity outside the binary, but it is a single-user bathroom available for anyone. I like the text because there are countless stories of people with invisible disabilities and illnesses who need the accessible stall or a separate bathroom. And they get berated by people who believe them to be non-disabled people hogging access. No, you shouldn’t use the accessible stall if you don’t need it, and there’s time for you to wait for a small stall. But no, you should not assume everyone who independently walks out of an accessible stall or bathroom without a mobility device is non-disabled or was otherwise just hogging the space. Absolutely not.

My dorm building opened with a keypad from the outside and a button from the inside so that there was no need to use a key, knob, or lever to enter the building. That’s really nice on a cold, rainy day for lots of people, especially if you have limited mobility or sensation in your hands.

It was a short trip. I’m sure I could’ve encountered more neat access signs and access features if I’d been there longer, and I hope this kind of stuff becomes so common here in the US!