Empathy Lab Kit

2.3 Cane

Some blind or visually impaired users make use of a cane to help navigate and avoid obstacles. Using a cane can help people gain independence but requires certain techniques for use.

2.4 RADAR Key

For many disabled users, accessing toilet facilities can present additional challenges, so it is always beneficial to be aware of accessible toilet and changing facilities when out travelling. Many accessible toilets are only accessible to those with a RADAR key which is a universal key for accessible toilets across the UK.

2.5 Jar Opener

For many mobility impaired users who might have trouble with grip strength or have only one arm etc. single hand or automated jar/bottle openers are a useful tool in having independence in the kitchen.

2.6 Bump dots

Bump dots are sticker dots that can be placed onto different equipment around the home, such as marking settings and functions on a washing machine or microwave.

2.7 Blind Signature Guides

There are still times in a person’s life when they will be required to physically sign a document using a pen. For blind users this obviously presents an additional challenge in knowing where to sign.

Signature guides are a common tool that take the form of a small piece of plastic often the size of a credit card. The guide is positioned over the document to sign, with the dotted line inside the cutout. This plastic edge then gives the blind users a tactile box within which to keep their signature.

2.8 Please be patient cards

If Covid had any silver lining, the awareness raising around hidden disabilities may be one small positive outcome. There is a lot of debate around the requirement of disabled people to “out themselves” by wearing badges or cards, but some can find it useful for example, during travel, when they may want to notify people in a loud environment that they have a hearing impairment, or a mobility issue that may mean they move slower than normal.

2.9 Mask Exemption cards

One of the most controversial disability related items from the covid era were the mask exemption cards. We have obtained these controversial items specifically to help attendees reflect on the way disabled people were treated during covid restrictions and how some bad actors utilised reasonable adjustments to avoid public health measures, damaging the reputation of these tools in the process and impacting the experience of disabled users that may have had a genuine need.

2.10 Disability Lanyards

In a similar vein to the mask exemption cards, disability lanyards became a symbol of rule avoidance during the pandemic but have since become a more accepted signifier of hidden disabilities.

Many chose to wear these lanyards or other signifiers in situations where they feel they need to make those around them aware, or now as a symbol of their ownership of their disability or allyship with disabled colleagues or friends.

2.11 Clear Face Mask

Another item from the pandemic, facemasks presented significant issues to deaf and hearing impaired individuals who relied on lip reading to identify what people were saying. Different approaches were tried including face shields or clear face masks such as the one pictured below to help hard of hearing people still be able to converse with others while still reducing chances of infection.

2.12 Lip-reading Exercises

The lip-reading exercise sheets are used to demonstrate how hard it can be for some D/deaf or hard of hearing individuals to understand a speaker just through lip reading alone.

Have individuals stand facing each other and provide each of them with either a sheet A or sheet B. Have them take it in turns to read the examples given on each sheet and the other person guess what was said. For example: person A will read the first example Love, Laugh, Tough. Person B will then guess what is being said.

2.13 Hand Brailler

This device is used to manually punch Braille into a piece of paper, card or plastic surface.

Each cell corresponds to a braille letter and attendees are encouraged to try out writing some Braille such as their name or other example they would like to try.

2.14 Grade 1 UK Braille Alphabet

A useful tool in conjunction with the Hand Brailler. The Grade 1 UK Braille alphabet introduces attendees to the Braille format and how to construct words. It can also be used to introduce attendees to the complexity of Braille as a language and instruct on the higher levels such as Grade 2 which introduces contractions.

 2.16 The OPTACON

A historic piece of assistive technology, the OPTACON is an optical character recognition device that uses a series of pins to vibrate a tactile experience of the character onto a user’s fingertip. This piece of equipment is a great conversation starter about how far assistive technology has come, where a person used to require an expensive piece of equipment such as the OPTACON which produces a questionable user experience, to the present day where everyone has built in screen readers on their mobile device by default which produce a far more useful experience for blind users to be able to consume content in a way perceivable to them.

2.17 UK Home Office Accessibility Posters

GovUK has produced many useful tools for accessibility design, one of the most well known being the UK Home Office accessibility posters which give quick examples of do's and don'ts when designing for users with different conditions or access requirements including:

• The Autistic spectrum

• Screen readers

• Low vision

• Physical or motor disabilities

• Deaf or hard of hearing

• Dyslexia

The posters are available for anyone to download and use or create their own versions.

2.18 Colour Filter Rulers

Some partially sighted users, and dyslexic users can have problems with eye strain, or readability when looking at paper documents as well as on screens. Some users find it useful to look at content through coloured filters which can reduce eye strain or help reduce mental load for some dyslexic users.

Colour filter rules are a tool often used to adjust the colour of text being read on a printed document as well as provide a separator to help users read one line at a time, or only a small block of text at a time.

2.19 Tactile scratch worksheets

These plastic sheets are used as tactile alternatives for quick and easy drawing. Using a pen or other scoring implement, the user can draw onto the sheet, leaving a raised impression on the reverse side. Flipping the paper over reveals the now tactile graphic.

2.20 Tactile Paving Examples

Everyone is familiar with the bumpy paving slabs at road crossings and train stations across the UK, but people may not know why we have them or what they mean.

Tactile paving is used to help blind navigators orient themselves at crossings or know where the edge of train platforms is. The different patterns represent either a guide to the crossing point or showing the crossing point location.

2.21 Tactile maps and diagrams

All Able are researching improvements to tactile format options through 3D printing. The research has created a variety of examples from different sources showcasing the range of delivery offered by new design and printing improvements. Highly detailed multi-height tactile alternatives have been created from, existing traditional tactile maps, lecture slides, photos of maps and images in real world locations, historical artefacts, stone carvings, and from scratch.

You can find out more about the research project and download some of our tactile examples.

2.23 UK and Ireland traditional Braille atlas

To demonstrate more traditional approaches to tactile formats the Empathy Lab includes a Braille atlas of the UK and Ireland. This tactile book includes an overall map of the British Isles as well as closer view maps of each country. Notable cities are marked out with either circle or star icons and there are full braille keys for each map included.

The atlas was produced by Tactile Vision Graphics, a Canadian company.

2.24 Optical Magnifier

Magnifiers are common tools used to help partially sighted users better read printed text or view small objects. The Empathy Lab includes a classic dome magnifier for text enlargement.

Magnifiers come in all shapes and size, some are traditional magnifying glasess with a handle, some are glass domes, and some are more like telescopes for example.

2.25 Cambridge University Simulation Gloves

The Cambridge Simulation Gloves are an approximate method of dexterity impairment simulation. The gloves reduce the functional ability of the hands. Plastic strips limit the strength and range of motion of each finger and the thumb. Various conditions, such as arthritis, can cause reduction in these functional abilities. As an example, these gloves will make it much more difficult to use a knife and fork, which correctly simulates the difficulties that people with arthritis of the knuckles have in gripping small handles.

2.26 Lego Braille Bricks

The LEGO Braille Bricks concept is a play-based methodology that teaches braille to children who are blind or have a visual impairment.

The studs are arranged to correspond to numbers and letters in the Braille alphabet. Each brick shows the printed version of the symbol or letter, allowing sighted and blind children to play and learn together on equal terms.

Lego Braille Bricks also has a wide variety of web resources including more than 100 learning activities.

3.2 Other paper documents

Alongside our growing library, the All Able Empathy Lab contains many other paper guides and handouts. We have:

• Communication tips from Action on Hearing Loss

• Productivity Tool handouts

• Plain English Guides

• Running Accessible Events

• Accessible Document Basics

• Accessible Social Media Basics

• Several case study 1 pagers

If customers would like specific 1 pagers or handout guides for an individual empathy lab, the team is always happy to produce individual handouts for specific subjects on request.