Making Spaces: From Signs to SystemsPodcast

Intro
Welcome to Accessible Horizons, a podcast series about how to build a barrier free and inclusive public service. Join your hosts. Accessibility experts Ned’s Insurance and Luna Bengio from the accessibility, Accommodation and Adaptive Computer Technology Act program for a lively discussion and lots of practical tips.

Luna
Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to episode four of Accessible Horizons. Thank you so much for being here. And tuning in and listening to what we have to tell you today. We’ve got a great episode lined up for you. I’m Luna Bengio and I’m Nadine, and we also have our mascot for our podcast Nadine is going to remind you of who she is, as she describes the place where.

And today we’re in a very special room, I think, here. And even though I don’t like the word special, I think this kind of room really creates

a different space for employees and clients here at 2019 Laurier. So tell us why. What is this room and what purpose does it serve? Nadine

Nadine
I love this room. It is the sensory room . It is one of two here at 219. Laurier. So there’s one for clients and one for employees. So this is the biggest one and
we can describe it. But first let me tell you why I love it so much. It is a sensory room. It takes all of your senses and either, removes your fact that you’re overwhelmed or anxious or stressed.

It really helps calm people down. Or the opposite. So I use it often, 
especially when here at 219, I use it sometimes when I’ve had a difficult conversation or difficult meeting when it’s really hard to shake that that bad mood or that, you know, bad taste in your mouth or any of those things. So sitting in here for a ten, 15 minutes really charges my batteries, and then I can go back out and work and be productive for the rest of the day.

And the other thing it does is when I’m really, really happy and I’m in a high has been a great day, and sometimes it’s hard to get back to work after you’ve been so excited and so many fun things happening. So this room will do that same thing really helps ease the stress, the anxiety, and whether that’s positive stress.

Because stress is not always negative, it can be positive, it can be negative. And this one does it for me. So there’s a lot of attributes in this room. So would you like me to describe some of them.

Luna

Definitely and I think this this space does different things for different people. And so please describe what is around us here today.

Nadine
I’d love to. And as you know, we’ve talked about it in all our very different podcasts is the fact that 2019 is evergreen. We keep adding, we keep changing, we keep making sure that our space is as accessible as possible. In this room. There are still elements that are missing from this room. But let’s talk about the elements that are here.

So the most obvious ones are the bubble tubes, the ones that are sitting beside me. And oh, I forgot to mention our special guest today. So that always comes to our podcast. Since the last one. And that is Celeste, and she is our mascot, and she is sitting right against the bubble tube. So there’s two in this room, and the bubble tubes are long, tubes filled with water.

There’s air that circulates through them, so they make bubbles, and inside there’s balls, and those balls are multicoloured, and there is light that shines through the light. And the light changes on a regular basis. And I’m actually sitting on the bench where the bubble tubes are. And sometimes I’ll just hit my hand and I’ll put my hand on it because the vibration really, really is nice to really help calm down.

So it’s hitting a lot of my senses. So the vibration, the tactile, the sight, the bubbles, the noise that it makes. And some people really, really don’t like the noise that it makes. I find it quite soothing. Soothing. Absolutely. Love it. Yeah, definitely. So what else do we have here? Lots of great aspects to this room. What do we do?

And right at our feet, Luna. Because and I picked the blue one. Of course if you’re listening to our podcast, you know it’s both of our favourite colours. So at our feet they’re gel tiles and the gel tiles have it’s it looks like ink in them, but there is a coloured water in them. And as you step on them or touch them, they move around and the shapes change and they’re very, very cool.

We have one at our feet. There’s two. There’s three more in this room. So the colours are different. We have the blue one. There’s a green and yellow one. There’s an orange and red one, and there’s a pink and white one. So that is on the floor. And behind you, Luna, there’s a cube. And that cube changes colours.

You can set it to one colour. It’s very mute. It’s white. But then the colours light it up. And the way I have it set today is it fades from one colour to the next. So very, very slow, to be able to do that, which is really interesting. And beside me,
beside Celeste, there’s a little blanket and it’s everything in here is micro bacteria.

So antimicrobial. I can’t even say the word. And this one is a weighted blanket. And we have a few in this room as well. So people do love the weight of these. And they’ll sit down. And sometimes when I sit in this room, I’m sitting properly because we’re doing a podcast today. But normally I’ll put my feet up on the bench, take my shoes off, and really helps bring down the stress and the anxiety of the day, which is really nice.

And I’m going to hand you something, Luna, because we do have things that are very tactile in this room. So I’m going to hand you the putty that I have and. Oh yes, I know you like it and I don’t and that’s why I wanted to hand it to you, because I know you don’t like it. And again, all of the pieces here are good for different people.

And sometimes the bubble tubes go off and it’s just a place to sit. And there’s a variety of ways you can sit. So you’re sitting on the chair that we have for the podcast. I’m sitting on the benches. We also have a mat that we can put down on the ground, so people can actually lie down or sit on the ground.

It’s usually very grounding, and people like to sit on the ground and close their eyes and be in this room, which is, really nice. So that’s, basically what we have. And, you know, if we show this room again in a couple of months, you will see a lot of different things. Well, it’s fantastic that it’s a work in progress.

Luna
It’s a journey like accessibility. So journey is full of little and small and big steps that can help make the world more welcoming for everyone. And we’ve just you’ve just really witnessed the difference Nadine loves the putty. I cannot stand to touch it. It makes me cringe. So we are different people and that’s why we need different solutions for different people, right?

Tell me more about. So let’s say I am a manager. I am in a in a different federal building. As an organization, I want to offer my employees this opportunity to use a room like this for 10 minutes or 15 minutes, for whatever reason, to to refocus, to calm down, to re-energize. And I want to start creating something like this.

How would I go about it and how much does it cost?

Nadine
Good questions. So how would I go about it?

First, you can always ask us because we’ve done it before.

Second of all, a lot of people, when we designed this room, there was a lot of research involved. There was a lot of companies that we reached out to, and there’s two actual companies in Canada that do this for a living, and they’re very good there.

And they are, they are they do have a standing offer. Apologize for that.

When we look at that, we asked them for some of their information, because these sensory rooms are created a lot for children, and they are now in more and more schools, but not a lot of them are for adults. And I’m happy to say that we are not the only ones now that have sensory rooms.

There are other departments that are starting to do it, and they’re doing it across many ways. And you will see sensory rooms, you will see wellness rooms, and they’re very different. So that’s important, to make that distinction in a wellness room is more a place where you can sit., read, calm down. This one has a lot of stimulus, and that stimulus is to help with the overstimulation.

Whether it’s olfactory whether it is visual, auditory. It really helps for all of that. I’m glad you asked about cost, because cost is dif is is depending on what your budget can be. Because you can do this on a smaller scale, you can do it on a bigger scale. So I had the putty in my hand.

This is not very expensive. Again it is antimicrobial which is really good. So I can have it. And you know it doesn’t transfer any of the other stuff that I have. And I love playing with this. I usually have it. I have one on my desk that I use often, and the cost can be as little as $500 to as little as much as over 50,000.

It really depends on what you’re going to do. These bubble tubes were created for us with the size that we were looking for. Because of the size of the room, there are smaller ones, and it seems to be one of the favorite attributes of this room for many people that visit.

Yes, absolutely. The design of this room was done.

Luna
I just want to make sure that it was done as was the design of 219 Laurier in general, with a lot of input and a lot of work from the AAACT team. Right? Correct. It is the employees that did the research that made the design and that brought all of this together, and that was even before I got here.

Nadine
Which has been now two years. And I’m just helping to bring the vision alive that was created when there was a decision to build this place and make it as accessible as possible. So we encourage all of her viewers, all of her followers to contact us if you’re interested in learning more about what we did here, but also do your research for yourself, try to find small steps that you can take to make your space more welcoming.

Luna
To create that environment. And we’re now going to move to our second piece in this, podcast up today, this episode. And it’s going to be also about the space that we’re in in general. And we’re going to talk about signage and we’re going to talk about wayfinding, because those also are important aspects of accessibility. There are ways to remove barriers.

How many people have you seen looking at a sign perplexed and not knowing what to do with the information that was on the sign? Well, our signs are, if we may say so ourselves. They’re very calm, complete and very useful. And you have some symbols. I do I do have some samples. So I’m going to hand you one.

Nadine
And then I’m also going to show the other two that I have. So before you start explaining yours and

I will show mine. Yes, exactly. Put it on the right side and I have the pictograms. So on mine they’re, they’re, they’re pictures. So and I have two different ones. So I have a black one and I have a white one.

So I’ll let you explain because you do it so well. And then I’ll explain why I have two different pictograms and how it’s important to have options. Yes. Are our signs. That’s what they do. They offer options no matter how you as an individual consume the information or interact with their information, you have options. So I can describe this part of the sign because these are all parts of the signage that we’re going to eventually have posted on our walls or on our doors, it as soon as we have them all.

Luna
So on this one in particular, we see at the very top the numbers. So it’s the number of the room of the boardroom that this time goes on and it’s the training room. So underneath the numbers we have letters that say training room. And they are tactile raised letters. So are the numbers by the way. And the sign is dividing it divided into two parts.

The left hand side is the English. On the right hand side is the French. And so below the tactile alphabet, regular alphabet letters. We have braille. Braille letters, let’s say training room. And we have a space underneath so that it’s easier, whether it’s visually or, with your touch to make a difference between the top part of the sign and the bottom part of the sign, because at the bottom we have QR codes.

We have a QR code, not in the plural one and an NFC tag. And so those are electronic methods to offer information via the use of a camera in a smartphone. So we have the same thing, in English and in French. And those are the various methods. So some are very low tech like using regular raised characters and then some are a lot more high tech, which are the QR codes, and NFC tag.

Nadine
So that’s the the sign. And as I said, it offers choices for people.

That’s great. Thanks, Luna And if I bring up my pictograms you’ll see that one is white and one is black. So the sign that Luna is holding up the background is black with the white lettering. And but I do have also have a choice. Mine are tactile.

They’re pictograms, they’re white. And they have black. They have black bonhommes or, you know, pictograms. And notice that both mine and Luna sign are bordered in purple. We talked about it at our last podcast, why purple is important. So it is Accessible Horizons colour. It is SSC’s colour and is also the universal colour for accessibility. So we have these great signs.

And we talked about low tech, no tech, high tech and how the NFC tags and the QR code are more electronic. But we have a lot of we have one more different way of doing navigation here within 219.

Luna, do you want to talk about it?

Luna

Absolutely because the signs are great. But you got to get there.

You got to get there. You got to get to the training room. Right? You got to find your way somehow. And that’s where indoor navigation comes in. And so we have a wonderful way that we can offer to orient and direct people towards the place in the on the floor that they want to go to. And we earlier in this morning, we recorded demonstration of this system that we use here which is called GoodMaps.

So for those of you who will view our recorded podcast on one of the familiar platforms, you will be able to see the demonstration of Goodmaps. Basically, it uses mapping technology in a smartphone to direct you, just like a GPS would direct you in your car to direct, you turn by turn to the place that you want to go.

So you search the number of the boardroom and you find it and it directs you there. And it is super useful because it gives you a sense of comfort, a sense of security. And it is, it is one of the systems out there. There are many there are many different electronic or technology assisted ways to do indoor navigation.

The good map is available to try, actually, if you are in Ottawa, in the National Capital Region and you visit the VA rail station, you’ll be able to experience what GoodMaps can do for you. Where VIA rail has done a lot to improve accessibility. And this is one of the aspects, right? So but we have other things.

We have other ways to to support orientation and navigation. And they are lower tech right, Nadine.

Nadine

There definitely are. So I don’t need QR code I don’t need a phone. I don’t need any of those things. So the entrance, for example, to the sensory room here is we do have carpet for now. It will be removed because, it’s not as accessible as we would like, but all of the closed offices here at 219 Laurier have a rectangle of a different kind of carpet.

So it’s a different colour. It’s a different texture. So people that are walking and have to go into a room, etc., they will know just by the feel under their feet. The other thing that we have is we have baseboards, baseboards that are high visibility, contrast with the carpet or the floor and the wall. So those really help orient you,
in your pathfinding ways in order to get to all of the doors and to get around as easily as possible within the space,. Every door, because there’s a lot of doors here at 219 Laurier because we do have a two different spaces. And if you stay tuned to the next podcast, you will meet one of our favourite spaces here, apart from the sensory room, of course. And you’ll see the difference and why that is. But you’ve seen the classroom, you’ve seen that. But all of the doors are equipped with electronic doors.

And you can either press the button or there’s columns there all along the wall there long, so you can hit them with your elbow, with your chair, with your foot, with your knee. And they all do the same thing, or you can do a little dance in front of it and that works as well. So in so it does say it beside the walls is just shake and, and the doors will open.

So it’s a variety of ways to be able to notice where you are and how you’re getting there. And we don’t just convey by colour here. We convey by different kinds of spaces so that it’s visible or it’s accessible to as many people as possible with options. So this morning when we did the demo, we did the high tech and Luna was able to walk around and find her way just using by good maps and the phone told her where to go and what to do and where to turn.

And then when she arrived at the sensory room, which she was trying to get to, it says, you are here. So it was quite interesting to see how easy it is to use all of the different functionality of this space when it comes to that. So not everybody, not every workplace, will necessarily be able to implement all of these, aspects, whether it’s low tech or high tech.

Luna
And you notice that some are really, really very simple to do. However, what we’ve demonstrated again is the importance of choices.

That’s accessibility. Accessibility is choices is giving people a way to function in the best way that they function, without assuming that everybody is the same, or thinks the same or communicates the same. And we’re going to slip right into our next topic because it’s about, again, it’s about the workplace.

And we’ve talked a lot in this podcast about workplace adjustments and how we can make sure that every employee is equipped with the tools and the support that they need to do a good job. But there’s more that we can do. And it’s the it’s the other, side of the continuum between accessibility and individual adjustments. So accessibility means creating the environment, removing barriers in the environment.

And one would think that, well, we need architects or we need facilities or we need a whole lot of people to ensure that the spaces are accessible. But, Nadine, as managers, there’s lots that people can do. So let’s let’s dive right into examples of what’s within, the purview of a manager that they can do.

Well, now you’re supposed to tell me that I’m a manager.

And what would I do? Well,

Luna
Do I have to tell you who you are?

Nadine
Yes, please. Makes my life a little bit easier. So, yes, as a manager, there’s a lot of things that I can do and a lot of things that I do do. So one of the examples here today that just today I’ll use today as an example, and how many times more than I can say today in the same sentence that I was trying not to anymore.

But today we are setting up for a podcast, right? So there are obstacles in the way. There are things that I’ve put in the hallway that is normally not there, and there’s wires that are right in the middle of the floor hanging not on the floor, but they’re hanging up in the air so anybody can trip over them.

So it’s making sure that these spaces are accessible to everyone. So for today I made some decisions. And people know that we’re doing this. So they’re not coming down this hall until things are going to be put away. But you know how when you come into the office, sometimes in the morning, like I’ll do and I’ll, I’ll walk the floor and I’ll do that at night as well.

And sometimes there’s the cleaners come, sometimes there’s garbages in the way, and sometimes it’s all of that space. A couple weeks ago, we had water damage in here, so we had garbage cans collecting water. There was painters coming in, and there was all of this. So knowing that ahead of time, being able to tell your staff, tell your employees what’s going on.

So to make sure that they have a barrier free day when they come to the office is definitely something I can do. And sometimes it’s not about me. So if there’s a snowstorm or there’s something going on and I’m looking at major things, right. But there are so many small things that we can do as managers to make sure that our space is barrier free and that our employees are getting the things that they need, or the solutions that they need to make their life a little bit better at work.

So when there is a snowstorm where there is anything like that that’s building related, and it’s not my job to fix, but it is my job to figure out how. So what I need to do is call the right phone number and get a facilities to help me out, or talk to HR about or talk to occupational health and safety.

I am not alone. And that’s what managers need to know. There’s a lot of things that as a manager, I can do myself, but some I need the expert advice and the expert help. So I said earlier that we’re getting the carpets changed. That took a lot of influence. that took a lot of conversations to get facilities to agree, and it took many departments to get to that point.

So sometimes it’s a lot of influence and a lot of conversations to get to where you need to go, and sometimes it’s just moving a wire out of the way and make sure it’s tucked in properly. So that people don’t trip over it. Absolutely. And I think that we underestimate really the leeway that we have, whether it’s of managers or even as individual employees, to make sure that we improve the space we’re all in so that there are less barriers.

Luna
And one example I think is really easy to implement and it is important is creating, for example, scent free workspaces. A lot of people have encountered barriers when scents are strong. So and communicating with that message to your employees, ensuring there are signs that say this is a scent free environment and really sticking to it and having the conversation with with the team to make sure that they understand what what the goal is and why we are doing it right.

And speaking of having conversations with the team, one idea that one of our participants in a workshop this week in a manager’s workshop gave us is, you know, bring your team together and do a brainstorming of the things that are within all of your powers to change in your workspace. How can you make it better? And that usually works because it gets buy in from everyone.

Nadine
And people have fantastic ideas. People are creative, right? They certainly are. And I’m glad to use the example of scents because we are in the sensory room, right? And we don’t only have one scent, one sense, sorry, we have many and we have five of them. So that’s why when we talk about signage, when we talk about the sensory room, when we talk about all of those different things, they hit all of our different senses where whether it’s a vision or audition or sense or tactile.

And that’s why it was important to talk about all of the different things that we have here to be able to do that. And, you know, you don’t have to be a manager to ask someone to not wear scents or ask someone what they need or how they can be supported. Right. And I love the idea of bringing your team together and do a brainstorm.

Like we’ve done that here a few times at the beginning when the space was delivered to us and we had people walk the floor and we say, what can we improve? And we got some great ideas. We got ideas about noise canceling. We made sure that one side of this, place is a quiet zone. And this is where this sensory room is.

It is in the quiet zone. So around it’s quiet. So it helps, really. You have the stimuli in the room and you have quiet outside. So depending on what you need, it’s able to do that. And across the hall is the collaborative space. It’s actually on the other side of the building where I hang out because you know how loud I can be.

I don’t hang out on the on the quiet side at all. No, I usually in the loud space so I don’t disturb people because I have a lot of meetings. I end up having a lot of conversations and it’s just who I am an extrovert by nature, which helps. So it’s nice to be able to see the changes, and the transition room for one to the other so that people hang out where they enjoy being and they’re more productive being in the space that they enjoy being in.

Luna
Yes, absolutely. And I’m so glad you mentioned the fact that we are in the quiet zone of the building, because that’s something that’s achievable. We can all we can educate all of us to be quiet in a certain part of the of the building, let’s say. And you don’t need walls to surround it. You just need to identify and need to communicate that to people.

Nadine
And really, people will see the value because everyone at some point, even if they’re an extrovert, they may need a quiet moment, that’s for sure. I said it before, I love this room and I will hang out in it. Or whether I’m overstimulated because I’m excited or whether I’m anxious or stressed based on something that’s happened because, you know, there are difficult conversations, there are difficult parts of our day or even our week or our month, and we need to be able to be productive.

So you can’t just say, oh my goodness, I had a bad meeting. I’m going to take the rest of the day off. It just doesn’t always work. Sometimes that’s the solution, but normally it’s not. So in summary, we’ve talked about everything that each and every one of us can do, especially as managers, to make our space to be proactive and not wait until someone asks before we make changes and to to eliminate barriers as we go.

Luna
Just think about that. And so thank you so much for listening to us. Thank you so much for tuning in, Nadine. As always, a pleasure. I want to thank our interpreters, sign language interpreters and remind everyone that they can contact us or and to follow our podcast on the, usual platforms. So so thank you everyone. Now let’s try that again.

Nadine
I’m Nadine.

Luna
There we go. I’m Luna and thank you again. Bye

Outro
That’s a wrap on this episode of Accessible Horizons. We hope you picked up some practical tips along the way. Thanks for tuning in. Together we are building a more inclusive and barrier free public service. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave us a rating and review. It helps others discover the podcast. Join us next time for more conversations with your hosts Nadine Charron and Luna Bengio.