Real and Virtual Walls against Easy Navigation
If a person in the states wants to work onboard an American airline, they must pass a series of tests, including one test where they spend an entire day in a wheelchair. As the day progresses, these students discover that ordinary doorways turn into traps and that obstacles in hallways (people included) turn straight corridors into mazes. The reason that some airlines promote this educational tool is because they want students to learn how some passengers feel when they lack ordinary navigational skills.
The airlines also want their students to learn about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which became U.S. law in 1990. This act is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities and, therefore, also affects architectural wayfinding design. The ADA generally requires that employers, state and local governments and places of public accommodation offer reasonable services or tools to insure that people are not discriminated against on the basis of disability.
The ability to understand how difficult it is for some people to navigate through buildings is one thing, but the issue of the applicability of the ADA to the Web depends upon whether or not the Web can be considered a “place of public accommodation.” For a number of years the U.S. Department of Justice has waffled on whether the ADA and National Federation of the Blind are correct that the Web, indeed, is a public place that accommodates both people and information.
Linda Goin carries an A.A. in graphic design, a B.F.A. in visual communications with a minor in business and marketing and an M.A. in American History with a minor in the Reformation. While the latter degree doesn't seem to fit with the first two educational experiences, Linda used her 25-year design expertise on archaeological digs and in the study of material culture. Now she uses her education and experiences in social media experiments.