Interviews with students and teachers at the BBI

In the last two weeks we have started to survey students and teachers at the Federal Institute for the Blind in Vienna (BBI) about the inclusive design of sports facilities and sports equipment and have gained many exciting insights.

This clearly shows that sports facilities and sports equipment are unfortunately largely designed on the assumption that users have (good) eyesight. For blind and visually impaired people, they cannot be used at all or only with a lot of support.


Some examples:

Picture 1: In most cases, sports fields have a single-colored floor. The color coding makes it easier for visually impaired people with visual impairments to see when they approach the gang. In addition, the green ground here is a bit softer, so you can feel it when stepping on it.
Picture 2: A lot of sports equipment is made of wood. Due to the low contrast to the wooden floor, however, they are hardly recognizable. With colored dice there is at least one alternative to the “classic” box, but gymnastics benches are only available in the “standard version” on the market.
Picture 3: Balls are not easy to spot, especially when moving. Jingle balls therefore have a small metal bell inside, so that they can not only be seen but also heard in motion. But once they come to rest, they can hardly be found in a large sports hall.

So there is still a lot of catching up to do here. Do you perhaps have an idea or two as to which adjustments can be made to improve conventional sports equipment for blind and visually impaired people?

Just get in touch with our project coordinator Gerald Steindl


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