How accessible is a visit to the cafeteria?

For many people, getting food, carrying a tray and taking it to a seat is simply part of everyday cafeteria life. For people who are permanently or temporarily restricted in their mobility, however, this can quickly become a challenge. The route through the cafeteria is not always easy for wheelchair users or people with prams either.

For this reason, the Kompetenzzentrum Inklusive Bildung Sachsen-Anhalt visited the Institute of Industrial Design at Hochschule Magdeburg-Stendal on Wednesday for the launch of the project “Let’s go mensen”. Some time ago, KIB had approached the department with the proposal to jointly develop a low-barrier cafeteria tray. The aim of the project is to find practical solutions for an everyday area that has often been considered from a rather one-sided perspective.

At the start of the project, KIB first introduced its team and its work. The main focus of the first meeting, however, was practical experience. The students were not only invited to talk about barriers, but also to perceive and understand them for themselves. They were able to try out what it feels like to go to the cafeteria and get food when their own mobility is limited – whether permanently or only temporarily.

This form of self-experience is an important starting point for inclusive thinking and design. Experiencing a situation first-hand often makes it easier to recognise where obstacles arise and which small changes in everyday life can have a major impact. This is also central to KIB’s educational work: making perspectives visible, naming barriers and working together to find solutions. The Kompetenzzentrum develops and implements educational programmes by, with and for people with disabilities, and specifically brings the expertise of people with disabilities into educational processes.

In the project with the Department of Industrial Design, this approach is now being put into practice. The students are invited to translate their impressions from the first session into ideas and designs. The project is not only about developing a functional product, but also about the fundamental question of how design can help make participation in everyday university life easier.

KIB is looking forward to the next steps in the project. A further meeting will take place in early June, when the first interim results are expected to be presented. The cooperation with the Department of Industrial Design already shows how valuable it is to bring different perspectives together and to understand accessibility as a shared development process.

For us, the project is another important step towards a more accessible university. Removing barriers does not only improve the situation for individual groups, but creates more opportunities for participation for many people in everyday life. This is also a central concern of KIB: not only to address inclusion as a topic, but to help shape it in concrete and practical ways.