Tag: accessibility

The Wayfinding Centre Dublin

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

Leading on from my previous post about Google’s ADC, this week I’d like to talk about a recent trip I took to the Wayfinding Centre in Dublin.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the centre, it’s an innovative facility set up to make public transport more accessible for people with disabilities. The first of it’s kind, the centre empowers people with disabilities to navigate public transport by providing hands on training and experience in a safe indoor environment. Upon entering the centre, you walk into a real world replica of the Irish public transport experience including:

  • Street lighting, traffic lights, signage and timetable boards
  • Common transport noises such as pedestrian crossing sounds
  • Hazards including pavements (with accessible textured paving slabs), bollards, benches, fencing, fake roads, and train platforms
  • Replica cycle lanes, bus stops and pedestrian crossings
  • Sample train and Luas carriages
  • A double decker city bus and single level inter-city bus
  • An Accessible taxi
  • An Air France plane with replica airport security and boarding experience

In addition, the centre is also host to the living lab providing a high-tech innovation and research space where they perform user testing and conduct pilot projects, working closely with transport providers to make existing and future public transport more accessible for all users.

You can see a video from the launch of the centre in January 2024 below.

As previously discussed, navigating public transport can be quite an overwhelming experience for an autist. Everything is noisy and crowded and timetables can be confusing to decipher, especially when transport often does not stick to routine. The Wayfinding centre offers autists a unique opportunity to prepare themselves to access public transport to take some of the unknowns out of the equation. Autists can go to the centre and experience what it’s like to step onto public transport free from the sensory issues and pressure of the real world, allowing them to get used to the experience in a safe and supportive environment.

Perhaps the most impressive part of the centre is the experience of preparing for airport travel. Autists can visit the centre to get ready for their first trip to an airport and practice using scanners, putting luggage on carousels, and physically walking down the tunnel and on to a real plane where you can take your seat and comfortably adjust to the cabin experience.

I was really impressed by my visit and completely unaware such an innovative initiative was a mere few hours up the road. I would really recommend a visit if you’re around Dublin to experience the tour or access the facility in preparation for your public transport experience.

Hope you enjoyed this post dear Earthlings!

Have a lovely weekend!

Aoife

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Google Accessibility Discovery Centre (ADC)

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

This week I’d like to talk about a recent trip I took to Google’s Accessibility Discovery Centre (ADC) in Dublin- the first of it’s kind in the EU. Now I know you might be wondering what a trip to Google has to do with autism- but bear with me!

So the ADC is a dedicated space where researchers and engineers develop new technologies that can help people with disabilities including those with autism. Not only do they develop new technologies, Google also uses this space to engage more effectively with disability communities to better understand our needs. The space is specifically designed to facilitate different disabilities- it’s wheelchair accessible, the colour scheme was designed to suit different disabilities with muted tones, and the lighting can be easily adjusted for sensitivities.

There were a number of really cool, innovative technologies that will really help the quality of life for people with physical disabilities including games that can be controlled with a chin joystick and ones that track eye movements- you can literally drive a car on the screen using your eyes! They are also working on some amazing tools for those with nonverbal autism such as a picture based program where you can click on images to make sentences (kind of like the rapid prompting method). You can see this in the image below:

They also showed us around their suite of accessibility tools and extensions available when using Google Chrome, including dyslexic font to help make reading easier- who knew such things could exist?🤯 One of my favourite parts of the tour was the neurodivergent corner where they had a range of nifty sensory toys you could play with which were great for stimming. They also had some glasses for light sensitivity issues, loop earplugs and a sliding social battery pin- which I could really do with getting my hands on 🤣.

It is a really cool facility and it’s great to see new dedicated spaces like these that are working on making life easier for neurodivergents and others with disabilities. If you’d like to tour the ADC, you can email Google at adc-dublin@google.com to set it up- I highly recommend the experience! 😀

Hope you enjoyed this post dear Earthlings!

Have a lovely weekend!

Aoife

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