จากการสำรวจพบว่าคนตาบอดในสังคมไทยมีจำนวนเกือบสองแสนคนหรือร้อยละสิบของผู้พิการทั้งหมด เลยทำให้สนใจว่าสิ่งอำนวยความสะดวกในเมืองนั้นตอบโจทย์ต่อคนเหล่านี้ไหม มีการใช้ชีวิตยากลำบากแค่ไหน ซึ่งความจริงแล้วคนตาบอดก็มีสิทธิเท่าเราทุกคนเพราะเค้าคือ "มนุษย์" เช่นกัน มองกลับมาที่เมืองของเราที่ได้ออกแบบสิ่งอำนวยความสะดวกตอบสนองความต้องการของคนปกติให้สามารถเดินทางได้ง่าย แต่ในสถานการณ์จริงยังก็ยังมีอุปสรรคของการใช้งาน ซึ่งอุปสรรคนั้นมีมากขึ้นไปอีกเมื่อเรามองถึงการใช้งานของผู้พิการทางสายตา บทความนี้ได้ศึกษาตัวอย่างของเทคโนโลยีและการออกแบบจากประเทศต่างๆ ว่าเค้าทำกันอย่างไร เพื่อมาแนะนำในการปรับใช้ให้เข้ากับบริบทเมืองในประเทศไทย เรียบเรียงและเขียนโดย อัศเจรีย์ วรกุลสวัสดิ์ นักศึกษาฝึกงานจาก Urban Design and Development International Program - Thammasat University
Difficulty of living for disable people is the thing that people who have born with completed body parts will never understand. We have never lived without hands, legs or sight. Imagine that one day, we woke up and found that we cannot walk, speak or see; how tough our life would be. Therefore, the effective urban facilities for disable people should be provided to their every day’s life. Designing and creating a structure that can facilitate the disables is one of many things that we, as urban designers, could do to support them. This article gathers some of the innovations that could help improving quality of life of these disable people which are LED braille block and stuff reader.
However, the city environment does not really support these people, as can be usually seen in Bangkok. For example, the walking pathways for blind people, braille blocks, are designed and layouted ineffectively. For instance, around some specific areas such as pedestrian crossing, entrance and exit, there is no sign for the visual impaired people to know that they are standing in front of door or road which may lead to accident. Furthermore, innovations that are designed to facilitate blind people are rare in Thailand comparing to other countries such as Japan, Singapore or USA which have done numbers of research on innovations for blind people facilities.
which is the origin of the braille block. For example, the research from Springer has studied on light emitting block for visual impaired people by using LED in order to facilitate blind people, who are low-vision, on travelling in night time by notifying them when they are approaching to some specific places such as exit and entrance (Fukuda & et al., 2011). This project should be studied by Thais’ researchers too so blind people could live easier and safer from accident.
which has the objective to create solutions for people with special needs and disabilities (Nicolaisen, 2019). Basically, the device contains two main components which are sticker and scanning pen. Usability of stuff reader is that disables will have to point out the scanning pen to a special sticker that is filled with information of compartments’ content in specific area; the device will read the content aloud so they will realize what are placing in the area (“Stuff Reader,” n.d.). Normally, the device will be set up on shelve as it will help blind people to identify things without using hands which might cause an accident of dropping something from the shelve. Therefore, this innovation will make life of visual impaired people to be more comfortable and secure.
Blind people are also human; they have right to receive the same living standard as people with completed body parts. To offer the chance for blind people to live appreciatively, the innovations that were aforementioned above should be built effectively so that blind people would live quality life.
Source: Fukuda, H., Kuwahara, N., Suzuki, T and Morimoto, K. (2011). A Study on the Visibility of the Light Emitting Braille Block. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/.../10.1007/978-3-642-21753-1_33 Getting Started. (n.d.). Be My Eyes. Retrieved from https://www.bemyeyes.com/get-started Nicolaisen, D. (2019). IKEA Israel – This Ables. Retrieved from http://www.theinspiration.com/.../03/ikea-israel-this-ables/ Stuff Reader. (n.d.). IKEA Israel. Retrieved from https://thisables.com/en/patent/stuff-reader/