Universal Design

Universal design is the design of products and the enviorment to be accessible by all people. I find this to be a very interesting concept, because the more I observe my enviorment, the more I notice how far away we are from this. When I first learned about universal design, one of my initial thoughts was that UT's campus was definitely universally designed. I mean, there's handrails on the toilets and ramps by the stairs, that's the prime example of a universal design. Under further inspection, I realized I was completely wrong. When you get off the elevator, there is a giant gap and uneven surface. How is a person in a wheel chair supposed to easily get over a gap, when the elevator is their only way to get on the upper levels. If you go into the general education building, you have to go up a ramp that has multiple turns. If you're in a wheel chair, making a turn in a tight area is not ideal. Even though places have designs that technically make is accessible, they still need to design them where it is actually accessible. Universal design is such an important idea, but it needs to be implemented in a way that is truly beneficial to everyone.

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