#uoa

14/09/2020

It has been such a chaotic week..

I took my phone in to get it serviced, and the store screwed up and didn't have a replacement phone available for me 😒 but it's okay now! My friend lent me his old phone to use which means I can continue posting☺️

Today the government is announcing if there will be any changes made to the alert levels in New Zealand. As much as I wish everything to go back to normal, I hope they dont make any rash decisions. Also uni being online isn't too bad 😌 aside from the fact that I miss my friends..😕

Hope everyone is doing well!

My response to the question was:

Using our studios as a blind person would be horrendous. My first thought is of the dangerously narrow staircases down from the mezzanine level to our studio (and that one wobbly stair that always makes me feel like I'm going to fall), but the more I think about it the more I notice that it is clearly unsuitable for the visually impaired. Moveable furniture that gets left all over the place plus everyones junk which gets strewn over every surface would make negotiating the space a nightmare. The studios are incredibly loud and sound carries well through them making it feel like noise is attacking you from all sides so concentrating without something to visually ground you would be difficult and I imagine it could feel very claustrophobic. The ground material is an interesting one with needing something that responds well to the tapping of a cane and footsteps. I'm reminded of the main stairwells in which you can hear the echoing of footsteps if there's lots of people using it at once, and someone several floors removed from you can sound like they are right beside you. Perhaps the student centre is the only place in which the floor surface actually works because it's impossible to walk across it without hearing your footsteps (so it's not being deadened like with plush carpeting) but it's also not echoey and overwhelming. The last one I want to touch on is colour. What springs to mind here is that awful fully yellow wall right at the entrance to studio. The one that gives you migraines if you sit in that bay facing it for too long. Perhaps that would actually be suitable for someone who's visually impaired as it's a bold clear colour that does actually indicate where the door is. Similarly the yellow wall around the internal stairwell and elevator might act as a beacon and aid in feeling oriented.