San Francisco’s Apple Store in Union Square. Photo: Nigel Young/Foster+Partners.
Last month, I visited my daughter’s pediatrician’s office for her annual checkup. We have been going there since she was a newborn, and the office has changed little in the past 12 years. It has the same wood-paneled waiting room, the same small windows in the exam rooms, the same deafeningly loud fan in the bathroom. Every time I use it, it’s a race to finish and wash my hands before the low, roaring sound causes me to have a sensory meltdown. (I should probably email them about that.)
The pediatricians’s office was designed for economy, but even businesses with high-end design can be difficult for sensory-sensitive people to cope with. Take the Apple Store in downtown San Francisco: the second floor of the building is devoted to computer repair, but when you enter the space, it’s a wide-open room with no clear spot to line up or speak to someone in charge. It’s bright, loud and confusing.
These are accessibility issues for the 5-16% of us with sensory sensitivities, similar to how the absence of wheelchair access and braille signs is an accessibility issue for wheelchair users or people with vision loss. Just as there are checklists to make sure public spaces are accessible for people with a variety of physical disabilities (as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act), I have created one to help people create businesses, workplaces and other public spaces that are more accessible to people with sensory differences. This isn’t required by the ADA, but it’s good practice nonetheless, and it creates spaces that everyone feels more comfortable in — not just people with sensory differences.
You can see and download it here.
I developed it with the help of the folks in a large Facebook group for adults with sensory processing disorder, as well as my neurologist, who has studied and treated kids and adults with SPD for years.
If you’re designing a business, workplace, or another space that will be used by a variety of people, please consider using the checklist as you’re creating those designs. Your customers, guests and employees will be grateful.