Abstract
To date, outdoor game equipment and playground facilities worldwide are increasingly oriented towards a wide range of solutions in support to gaming activities for children of any age, independently from their motor, cognitive and social impairments. However, due to the complexity of variables interplaying between product demands and user capabilities, many efforts are still needed for making games and playgrounds as much as possible inclusive. The present work proposes a novel methodology useful to designers and other stakeholders for predicting the degree of user exclusion when performing play activities. User trials, focus groups, interviews together with the analysis of accessibility standards, disability descriptors by ICF, and Task Analysis were used for cross-correlating the required tasks with user capabilities. This led to creating an evaluation tool useful to get an immediate feedback and reliable information on the level of inclusiveness of any type of game equipment and user disability. It revealed to be also effective for assessing personal and environmental factors of interest and identifying design requirements.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
United Nations: Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Training Guide. No. 19. United Nations Publications (2014)
Casey, T.: Inclusive Play: Practical Strategies for Children from Birth to Eight. Sage Publications, London (2010)
Dong, H., McGinley, C., Nickpour, F., Cifter, A.S.: Inclusive Design Research Group: Designing for designers: insights into the knowledge users of inclusive design. Appl. Ergon. 46, 284–291 (2015)
Clarkson, P.J., Coleman, R.: History of inclusive design in the UK. Appl. Ergon. 46, 235–247 (2015)
Clarkson, P.J., Dong, H., Keates, S.: Quantifying design exclusion. In: Clarkson, J., Keates, S., Coleman, R., Lebbon, C. (eds.) Inclusive Design, pp. 422–436. Springer, London (2003)
Siu, K.W.M., Wong, Y.L.: Opportunities for inclusive play in densely populated cities: an analysis of the human factors in Hong Kong play space. In: International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics, pp. 314–324. Springer, Cham (2017)
ASTM F1487-11: Standard Consumer Safety Performance Specification for Playground Equipment for Public use
ASTM F1292-09: Standard Specification for Impact Attenuation of Surface Materials within the Use Zone of the Playground Equipment
EN 1176-1: Part 1: General safety requirements and test methods
EN 1176-2: Part 2–3: Additional specific safety requirements and test methods for swings
EN 1176-3: Part 3: Additional specific safety requirements and test methods for slides
Christensen, K. M.: Me2; 7 Principles of Inclusive Playground Design (2010). https://www.gametime.com/me2. Accessed 28 Feb 2018
Me2: 7 Principles of inclusive playground design™. www.gametime.com/me2. Accessed 24 Feb 2018
Rick Hansen Foundation: Let’s Play Toolkit. https://www.rickhansen.com/Portals/0/WhatWeDo/SchoolProgram/RHSPAdditional/AccessiblePlay/LetsPlayToolkit.pdf. Accessed 24 Feb 2018
Inclusive Play Design Guide. http://www.accessibleplayground.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Inclusive-Play-Design-Guide-LowRes-2.pdf. Accessed 24 Feb 2018
US Consumer Product Safety Commission: Public playground safety handbook. Government Printing Office (2010). https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/325.pdf. Accessed 24 Feb 2018
Cooper, L., Baber, C.: Focus Groups in Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics Methods. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL (2005)
Persad, U., Langdon, P.M., Clarkson, P.J.: A framework for analytical inclusive design evaluation. In: 16th International Conference on Engineering Design, pp. 817–818. Paris, France (2007)
Elton, E., Nicolle, C. A.: The importance of context in inclusive design (2010)
Blasco, R., Blanco, T., Marco, A., Berbegal, A., Casas, R.: Needs identification methodology for inclusive design. Behav. Inform. Technol. 35(4), 1–36 (2014)
Clarkson, P.J., Waller, S., Cardoso, C.: Approaches to estimating user exclusion. Appl. Ergon. 46, 304 (2015)
Hollnagel, E.: Task analysis, why, what and how. Handb. Hum. Factors Ergon. 4, 385–396 (2012)
Kern, P., Wakeford, L.: Supporting outdoor play for young children: the zone model of playground supervision. YC Young Child. 62(5), 12–16 (2007)
Kaplan, M.: Ten tips for choosing a playground for a child with autism, iPlaygrounds (2018). http://iplaygrounds.com.au/ten-tips-for-choosing-a-playground-for-a-child-with-autism/. Accessed 24 Feb 2018
Muñoz, S.A.: Children in the Outdoors. London: Sustainable Development Research Centre (2009). http://www.heritagecouncil.ie/content/files/children_%20outdoors_commissioned_report_26mb.pdf. Accessed 12 Feb 2018
Acknowledgments
The present work was supported by the PIU project - Progetto di Innovazione Urbana Comune di Cecina - financed by the Tuscany region (D.R. n. 3197 del 10.07.2015). The interviews were conducted as part of the collateral activities of the LED laboratory of the University of Florence, in collaboration with the designer Sebastian Lecca. The “Tutti a Bordo” project was created by the designer Fabio Casa Dei which is kindly acknowledged. For the interviews, a special thanks is dedicated also to Claudia Protti and Raffaella Bedetti, the responsible of the Parchi per Tutti Blog.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this paper
Cite this paper
Brischetto, A., Tosi, F., Rinaldi, A. (2019). Playgrounds for All: Practical Strategies and Guidelines for Designing Inclusive Play Areas for Children. In: Di Bucchianico, G. (eds) Advances in Design for Inclusion. AHFE 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 776. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94622-1_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94622-1_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-94621-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-94622-1
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)