It’s fun­ny how some of the best con­ver­sa­tions hap­pen in the most ran­dom places.

One lunchtime, a friend and I were wash­ing our hands when he hap­pened to look up at the re­stroom doors.

“You know,” he said, “what if some­one is blind with dwarfism? How would they reach those signs? How would they know which bath­room to use?”

I didn’t an­swer right away. Not be­cause I dis­agreed with him, but be­cause, in all my years of talk­ing about ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, I’d nev­er ac­tu­al­ly thought about it.

Like many blind peo­ple, I’m al­ways hap­py to see Braille sig­nage. If I walk in­to a build­ing and find Braille on the re­stroom doors, my first thought is usu­al­ly, “Great! Some­one re­mem­bered us.”

Here in Trinidad and To­ba­go, Braille isn’t yet as preva­lent in pub­lic spaces as it should be. I still get ex­cit­ed when I come across Braille on a med­ica­tion box or bot­tle. It means I can iden­ti­fy it in­de­pen­dent­ly, some­thing that wasn’t al­ways pos­si­ble be­fore. Those lit­tle mo­ments mat­ter.

But af­ter my friend’s ques­tion, I start­ed won­der­ing whether I’d been ask­ing enough ques­tions my­self.

Not long af­ter­ward, I found my­self hav­ing an­oth­er con­ver­sa­tion, this time about Braille sig­nage in gen­er­al. Some­one was telling me about stay­ing at a ho­tel where the room doors had Braille signs, and nat­u­ral­ly, the con­ver­sa­tion drift­ed back to the ques­tion that had been stuck in my head.

We start­ed think­ing about who those signs are ac­tu­al­ly de­signed for.

What about a blind child stay­ing at that ho­tel? Per­haps they’ve dashed ahead of their par­ents af­ter an af­ter­noon at the beach and are try­ing to find the fam­i­ly’s room on their own. Would they be able to reach the Braille sign? What about some­one with dwarfism? Or any­one else whose reach is dif­fer­ent from that of the av­er­age adult?

Then an­oth­er thought came to mind.

Why is Braille so of­ten placed at the same height as the vi­su­al sign?

Sight­ed peo­ple need signs where they can see them from a dis­tance. Blind peo­ple don’t. We have to walk right up to the door and read the sign with our fin­gers. It’s not like we’re stand­ing across the hall­way ad­mir­ing it. More of­ten than not, we’re feel­ing around un­til we find it.

Now, be­fore any­one points out that there are ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty stan­dards for tac­tile sig­nage, I know. Those stan­dards ex­ist for a rea­son, and I’m cer­tain­ly not sug­gest­ing we throw them out be­cause of one lunchtime con­ver­sa­tion.

What I am say­ing is that ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty shouldn’t be a fin­ished con­ver­sa­tion.

As blind peo­ple, we spend so much time ad­vo­cat­ing for ac­ces­si­ble fea­tures that we some­times cel­e­brate the fact that they ex­ist with­out stop­ping to ask whether they could be even bet­ter. And hon­est­ly, I un­der­stand why. When ac­ces­si­ble fea­tures aren’t al­ways easy to come by, every bit of progress feels like a vic­to­ry.

For years, that was enough for me too. If I found Braille on a re­stroom door, I was pleased it was there. If a build­ing in­clud­ed tac­tile sig­nage at all, I saw it as ev­i­dence that some­one had re­mem­bered blind peo­ple dur­ing the de­sign process.

But ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty doesn’t have to stop at “bet­ter than be­fore.” Ac­ces­si­ble de­sign should evolve just like every­thing else. Every im­prove­ment we’ve seen over the years be­gan be­cause some­one looked at the way things were be­ing done and asked whether there might be a bet­ter way.

Could this be eas­i­er?

Could this work bet­ter?

Who else haven’t we thought about?

Those ques­tions are what push ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty for­ward.

Dis­abil­i­ty isn’t one-size-fits-all. Blind peo­ple come in all shapes, sizes and ages. Some are chil­dren. Some have dwarfism. Some have ad­di­tion­al dis­abil­i­ties or mo­bil­i­ty chal­lenges. Ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty that works well for one per­son may not work quite as well for some­one else.

Does that mean there’s an easy so­lu­tion? Prob­a­bly not.

I don’t know whether Braille signs should all be low­er. I don’t know what prac­ti­cal chal­lenges that might cre­ate, or whether there are rea­sons the cur­rent stan­dards are the way they are.

But I do know that one sim­ple ques­tion changed the way I look at ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty.

I still get ex­cit­ed when I come across Braille. I prob­a­bly al­ways will. But now, I’ll al­so find my­self won­der­ing whether every­one else who needs that Braille can reach it just as eas­i­ly as I can.

This col­umn is sup­plied in con­junc­tion with the T&T Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion

Head­quar­ters: 118 Duke Street, Port of Spain, Trinidad

Email: ttb­wa1914@gmail.com

Phone: (868) 624-4675

What­sApp: (868) 395-3086