By the way, in case you’re wondering why a man with a sight impairment might want to go to an art gallery, please let me remind you it’s only my sight that’s failing... I haven’t had a cultural bypass. In fact, I love art, good design literature and music and I don’t think sight impairment should be a bar to any of the arts as long as a little sight remains. All the arts receive funding from government, the lottery and other bodies that represent everyone in society. If we’re all paying, shouldn’t we all have equal access?
As I approach the gallery’s main entrance I encounter a set of ‘A’ boards blocking the path, set up right in front of the main entrance. On the path I see some broken glass, which is obviously a hazard to Abbot (as well as to all kinds of other people). Entering the building, I point this out to a member of staff and mention that the glass needs to be cleared away. (An hour and a half later it’s still there.) In the foyer itself, which is used as a shop, there are too many display stands in too small a space, so I have trouble negotiating a path through. The aisles are so narrow that Abbot has to walk behind me. With him walking in the rear, I am now guiding him... Somehow, I don’t think that was the idea.
To reach the main body of the gallery I have to climb a short flight of wooden stairs. The nosing on these stairs is brown and doesn’t stand out against the wood. (It’s all very well having nosing that’s slip- and trip-resistant but why not make it helpful for people with sight problems, at no extra cost? Some colour contrast, please, Mr Curator.) I notice there is overhead lighting above the stairs but no one has bothered to turn it on.
Having moved from lino in the foyer, to wood on the stairs, I then have to deal with a third change of surface at the top of the stairs, where I suddenly encounter marble. What many sight impaired people do is take note of the surface as they enter a room by rubbing a foot discretely on the floor as they pass through a door. When a surface changes within a room, where the sight impaired person is not expecting a change, this is a trip hazard. This type of hazard has caught me out on many occasions and left me sprawled on the floor.
On this small landing, at the top of the first flight of stairs, I realise that the master staircase is still to come. Rather unexpectedly, it’s located to my right and there’s no sign to help me find my way. This main staircase leads to other gallery spaces and the stairs have no nosing at all. For someone with poor depth perception, judging the gap between stairs without nosing is difficult, especially since – as before – these stairs are poorly lit.
The top of the stairs brings me into a lobby which doubles up as a gallery space. Here, as elsewhere in the building, I find the signage poor so it’s difficult to work out where to go. Each of the exhibits has a small placard bearing relevant information but all the cards are written in Times New Roman 12 point. This particular font – a very common one – is difficult for sight impaired people to read as it has lots of tails and curls. 12 point is also far too small for many people with any kind of sight impairment.
To make matters worse, the floor in this area is grey. About a foot above the floor there is a thin grey trip wire about six inches from the wall to stop people getting too close to the exhibits. (Grey floor plus grey wire means an accident waiting to happen.) I trip over the wire as I’m trying to get close enough to read the sign in Times Roman 12 point...
In the main galleries the same unhelpful colour scheme, trip wire and poor signage is repeated on a much grander scale. (Walls are painted either grey, dark red or bottle green, meaning there is constantly a lack of colour contrast with the wires.) The walls in these galleries are about 12 feet high and are covered floor to ceiling in pictures. The only ones that are accessible to sight impaired people are those at eye level. How difficult would it be to design walls which revolve like a turntable? A whole wall could be rotated and pictures beyond eye level could then be brought into view. (Incidentally, this gallery used to have a range of tactile exhibits for sight impaired people but they were sold off and the money given to blind charities. I would have much preferred to see the exhibits remain within the gallery as a resource for the sight impaired community.)
Following the natural route through the gallery, I eventually come to another staircase that leads me back to the ground floor. This staircase is even darker than the others and, again, there is no nosing. (This issue was highlighted in an access audit six years before this visit, but still nothing has been done. Does this not already say something about the esteem the gallery has for sight impaired people? If there is a problem that can be easily rectified at little cost and yet it remains unresolved for over six years we can only assume that sight impaired people are not a priority.)
After making my way down the last staircase I find myself in a corridor that runs through the whole ground floor of the building. Some thoughtful person has decided that it would be a good idea to place plinths in the middle of the narrow corridor and stand exhibits on them. I accidentally walk into a few and panic as the exhibits wobble dangerously close to the edge.
The corridor eventually brings me to the gallery’s coffee shop where I am confronted with a whole new set of problems. On entering, the first thing I notice is that there are too many tables and chairs in too small a space. This means there are no access routes between tables. (Once again Abbot has to follow behind and once again, I have to guide him.) When I finally find my way to the counter I see that the menu is written by hand on a blackboard at ceiling height, about 15 feet up. As in the burger bar I mentioned in an earlier chapter, I stand there with Abbot in harness and ask what’s on the menu only to be told: ‘It’s up there.’ After I eventually manage to order something and sit down, I hear two of the staff loudly discussing my sight impairment. (Is this good customer care or what?!) After a while one of them approaches my table and proceeds to stroke Abbot without asking my permission first. Even worse, she then brings her face within inches of my own to see if I can see her. Perhaps, by now, you can understand how offensive this is.
The whole place seems to be designed to make people with a sight impairment struggle. Needless to say, my access audit report is not going to be positive. If you have responsibility for a building or public space, please think about access, lighting, signage, stairs and above all staff training. If you’re unsure whether your premises meet the standards required by DDA, consult an access auditor.
Make sure that your auditor doesn’t just look at the needs of the physically disabled and that he or she also checks for the needs of the sensory impaired. Far too many auditors are not good at this. If you need one, I know this bloke with a guide dog...
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