This morning, I received a text from a friend who invited Ben and me for brunch at a downtown diner. As I had never been to this diner before, I figured I would search around and see if their menu was posted online. I find this helps my independence in several key areas:
- None of my companions would need to read the menu to me. Most people don’t mind, but it seems that if I can do something for myself, I should. Perhaps that’s the perfectionist in me, but it’s always a little awkward when someone reads the menu out loud in a restaurant (Confession: I always feel a little bit like a small child who hasn’t grasped the concepts of reading yet).
- I could think about what I wanted to eat, and if I changed my mind or someone recommended something awesome, I’d at least know what they were talking about and not worry about missing something truly yummy.
- If I go back to this diner (something I will DEFINITELY do) and decide to go alone, i would already know their prices (something important for a cash-only business), their breakfast and lunch options, and not have to ask serving staff to take time out of a busy shift to help me out.
I was thrilled to find their menu online, but was disheartened to discover that it came in the form of pictures embedded onto their web page. As someone who uses screen reading software, I could not access the text that is part of those pictures. Mildly frustrated, I took to twitter, which I now realize is generally an ambiguous thing, because everyone has something to say on the subject.
But what came out of a pretty heated exchange was an ultimately complex discussion about asserting the rights of people with disabilities, when demanding accommodation is unreasonable, and when it is better to catch flies with honey by requesting accessibility or accommodation as a good move for a business’ customer base as a whole.
I will never completely understand what it is like living my life, navigating in a wheelchair, but I have friends who do. Many of them have expressed frustrations about apartment buildings with only one elevator, or workplaces where the accessible washrooms are on a completely different floor, or having to avoid shopping at certain stores because the shelves are too close together to safely navigate a chair. If I ask a restaurant to pretty-pretty-pretty-please re-post their menu online in alternative format, or (a rarity) ask if they have a braille menu on site, this is an infinitely easier accommodation than requesting them to alter their building structure for accessible washrooms or replacing stairs with a ramp. In no way am I saying that doing one means a business can’t or shouldn’t do another, but that one is more a matter of education than architecture, carpentry and physics.
So when do my rights end and a business proprietor’s begin? When is a request for accessibility unreasonable, untenable and rude? I don’t have the answers to these questions. To say that accommodations should never be requested (or even demanded) means that would put disability rights and dignity back into the dark ages. But to say that every possible accommodation can and should be made just for the asking brings us to a no-mans-land we’re in now, where businesses are afraid to address out-of-control fake service dogs and deny a legitimate service dog team service because ten minutes ago they kicked out a faker. Ultimately, the more people who can access a business, the more everybody wins. So the more who stand up and calmly explain that general accessibility – to the physical building structure, to a menu, or to the point-of-sale pin-pad – benefits everyone, the more likely a business is to take the request under advisement. Maybe wholesale change won’t happen overnight, but nothing worth fighting for ever does.
I won’t bully or brow-beat, but maybe I’m not the only one who can’t read the physical menu, and even the digital one. I felt right at home in that diner, and the food was stick-to-your-ribs comfort food. You better believe I’ll be back. So I, for one, am going to contact that diner and request an alternative format for their menu. After all, the food is great, and more people should eat there!
Life Unscripted 
I think this is pretty accurate, I was talking to one of the disability advisers today about how we can make campus more accessible to everyone, but with blind people in mind. Often it’s little things like putting braille on lift buttons that could make a big difference. I have a class on the 6th floor, so although I normally take the stairs I will probably be lazy when it comes to this one! And something as simple as braille means I don’t have to memorrise the layout of the buttons. Yes, I could do it, but if I came into the building alone and found the lift, having never used it before the braille could mean I could use it independently.
There are also some issues with incorrect tactile paving, for example the kind that should be used for crossings is put at the top and bottom of steps, when steps should be the long thin bars, not the bumps. Also the paving might only be on one section of the steps at the top, rather than the whole way across. I can navigate it fine but it could well throw some other people who are less confident travelers. However, with this one I understand that it would be a legistical issue to change, so I’m not demanding that. But I think it’s good to make people aware of access issues nicely so that they know for the future. Most people want to help, they just don’t understand what’s the best way to do it.
The students union also advertises all their events as text within images on their website. I’m very confident, and as a guide dog user my disability is obvious, so I don’t mind emailing them asking them for a text copy. But if I had an invisible disability such as dyslexia and needed to use specific colours to read I might not have the confidence to say that. And so I’m encouraging them to change it because how it stands currently could exclude some people, and I believe a college campus should be welcoming of everyone.
I think it’s all about encouraging change in the right way, and this post seems to be doing that. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with requesting an accessible document such as a menu. A lot of businesses won’t have even thought of doing it. I think that the way you go about it is the most important factor. Like with the tactile paving, I’m not demanding change. I’m just hoping I can educate them on how blind people travel and things that might benefit other disabled students, so that when they add things to campus in the future they already have the info.
A lot of blind people, and myself included at times, have this complex about not demanding too much. We’re told we’re being unreasonable, and that we should learn to adapt. When most of us are looking at it through this very narrow, selfish blind only viewpoint. Accessibility changes can help everyone, especially people with invisible disabilities who would struggle far more than we would to be taken seriously when communicating what they need.
Sorry this comment was so long! I thought this post was interesting and really hope they get an accessible menu, whether that’s online or in braille.
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Holly, your comments about the paving are very interesting. We’re really different about things like this, or way behind, or something. I find it really different depending on the cities I go to. Some have the bumps at the curb cut, other cities don’t.
Love your perspective on this. We are by no means the only students, employees, or customers with disabilities, so requesting accommodations as though it would benefit US, a very very small portion of the population… no wonder change is slow in coming, or is ineffective or inadequate.
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Holly, in Australia a lot of pedestrian crossings have the bumps at the curb on what we refer to as pram ramps. there are also the tactile bars at the top of the stairs to my local town library to alert somebody who is using a cane that the stairs are coming up. same goes for our local hospital. there are tactile dots before the lift then another set of dots before the stairs as I was on kidney dialysis for 7 and a half years I was aware of this as I used the stairs frequently. dots were also placed at the top of the stairs so that people who were coming down would be aware of them too. the following passage here is about personal and irrelevant topics but it does have something to do with the subject at hand. I once decided that after one of my dialysis treatments that I needed to go to the toilet. when I got to the toilet door I discovered it had unisex in braille. yes you guessed it, it had a braille sign on the door saying it was a unisex bathroom. while we’re on the subject of braille signs at our local McDonalds store there is a braille sign on the door of the McCafe part of the mcdonalds restaurant which is in conjunction with large tactile letters. if I go out anywhere for meals I mainly go out with people I know and my parents are always in attendance and looking at a menu is a discrete affair as my mother reads me the menu and I make my selections but I suppose everybody’s different but what goes on here in Australia is certainly different to what goes on overseas or everyone is different and has their own views I’m just giving my views.
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If it helps, I’ll confess that I contacted an independent bookstore to ask that they give the title of the book under the graphics of the book cover (I subscribe to this bookstore’s newsletter). They responded and explained a young bookworm they know puts together their newsletter in hopes of getting other paying jobs. They contacted the young bookworm an dshe said it was “super-easy” to add the names of the books underneath the graphics and she has been doing so ever since. Maybe learning this little trick will remind her to do so with other graphics she uses, and in turn help her get more jobs in the future
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Exactly! I don’t think people do this just because it’s easier. It’s just not something that comes foremost to mind. What if someone has a hard time reading laminated menus? If someone has an invisible disability and cannot process text, their online menus don’t help either.
It’s all about educating and figuring out what can be easily done. Many accommodations require very little if any extra work, so explaining what is needed can go a long way to making things more accessible for everyone.
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In other news, about accessing the arts, a sighted friend who came along on a touch tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio wrote a terrific guest post about the tour on my Safe & Sound blog:
https://bethfinke.wordpress.com/2015/09/23/touching-moments-in-architecture/
In the post my friend mentioned some similes the tour guide used. One of the comments that came back was:
I am curious about the effectiveness of similes for those who were born blind. Any ideas?
In my response, I did admit wondering about an asterisk simile mentioned in my friend’s guest post — I assumed people born blind would probably only know it as a symbol you use to refer to a footnote. Would they know what an asterisk *looks* like? The There was also a simile reference to a “barrel” in the tour , and I figured that would work for someone born blind . , “I think, because many adults have run across a barrel in their lives or have read books with barrels mentioned in them (and in the best of worlds, an itinerant vision teacher at school would know to call out that barrel reference and work with the child who is blind to explain it).
After leaving my response to the comment I googled things like “using similes when teaching children who are blind” and some such, but the only things that came up were metaphors with the word “blind” in them, like blind as a bat.
I told the person who commented that I’d send this question on to you and another blind blogger I follow, and I left the url for both of your blogs there in hopes it helps garner more readers for you both. I would be oh so grateful if you went to that post (it’s called Touching moments in architecture”) and left a comment there, or, perhaps, take this subject on as fodder for a future blog post of your own. Like I say, in my search it hadn’t been covered by anyone else!
Thanks much,
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