Full Accessibility

Synonyms / Other Terms Used

Accessible, Accessible Facility, Accessible Route, Barrier-free Access, Barrier-free Mobility, Disabled, Handicapped, Wheelchair Accessible, Wheelchair Facility, Wheelchair User, Wheelchair, Wheelchairs

Category

General Access, Public Facilities

Message / Function

To indicate routes and facilities with full accessibility (including the location of an accessible toilet)

	Source	Description
	X'67	Side view of chair, circle superimposed indicating wheel
	Koefoed	Side view of wheelchair with arm- and footrest, but without caster wheels
	ISA 1969	Side view of sitting stick figure with arm on armrest, arc below as wheelchair
	ISO 7000	Side view of sitting stick figure with arm on armrest, arc below as wheelchair
	Eco-Mo Foundation	Side view of sitting stick figure with arm on armrest, arc below as wheelchair
	Tern	Side view of sitting stick figure with arm on armrest, arc below as wheelchair
	MUTCD	Side view of sitting stick figure with arm on armrest, arc below as wheelchair
	NÖ Familienpass	Side view of sitting stick figure with arm on armrest, arc below as wheelchair
	Transport for London	Side view of sitting stick figure with arm on armrest, arc below as wheelchair
	DB	Side view of sitting human figure with arm on armrest, arc below as wheelchair
	UIC 413	Side view of sitting human figure with arm on armrest, arc below as wheelchair
	ISO 7001	Side view of sitting human figure with arm on armrest, arc below as wheelchair
	BS 8501:2002	Side view of human figure with arm on armrest, arc below as wheelchair
	ineltec	Side view of sitting human figure with arm on armrest, arc below as wheelchair
	U.S. National Park Service	Side view of human figure with arm on armrest, arc below as wheelchair
	HSSS	Side view of human figure with arm on armrest, arc below as wheelchair
	ÖNORM A 3011	Side view of human figure in wheelchair with arm on armrest
	Zurich Airport	Side view of human figure in wheelchair with arm on armrest
	O'72	Side view of human figure in wheelchair with arm on armrest
	Lanit	Side view of human figure in wheelchair with arm on armrest
	adlerschmidt	Side view of human figure in wheelchair with arm on armrest
	Wiener Linien	Side view of human figure in wheelchair with arm on armrest, horizontal line at bottom
	DTM Berlin	Side view of human figure in wheelchair with arm on armrest
	Pacific Bell	Side view of human figure in wheelchair with arm on armrest
	Expo '70	Side view of human figure in wheelchair
	Mater Dei	Side view of human figure in wheelchair
	EJP	Side view of human figure in wheelchair
	Swiss Post	Side view of human figure in wheelchair, hand on wheel
	MGBB	Side view of stick figure in wheelchair, hand on wheel
	OS Berlin	Side view of human figure in wheelchair, hand on wheel
	ÖBB 2007	Side view of human figure in wheelchair, arm position indicating activity
	Transantiago	Side view of human figure in wheelchair, arm position indicating activity
	Picto'grafics	Side view of stick figure in wheelchair, arm position indicating activity
	IKEA	Side view of human figure in wheelchair, arm position indicating activity
	IUAV	Side view of human figure in wheelchair
	Kolokolova	Side view of human figure in wheelchair
	Integral	Side view of human figure in wheelchair, hand on wheel
	Guemil	Side view of human figure in wheelchair, arm position indicating activity
	adlerschmidt	Side view of human figure in wheelchair, arm position indicating activity
	Handbuch wien.gv.at	Side view of human figure in wheelchair, arm position indicating activity
	Murphy	Side view of human figure in wheelchair, arm position indicating activity
	Daniel Choi Design	Side view of human figure in wheelchair, arm position indicating activity
	KSA	Side view of human figure in wheelchair, arm position indicating activity
	Ota S	Side view of human figure in wheelchair, arm position indicating activity
	AIP	Side view of human figure in wheelchair, posture indicating fast movement
	Microsoft	Side view of human figure in wheelchair in outline, posture indicating fast movement
	Marshalls	Side view of human figure in wheelchair, two arcs indicating movement
	Career Moves	Side view of active human figure in wheelchair, arms and shoulder as swung dash

Note: Some of the examples shown above were mirrored horizontally to contrast differences.

Discussion

A view at the table above implies something like an agreement on how to indicate routes and facilities with full accessibility, as almost all variants present a side view of human figure on a wheel chair. Differences mostly are found just in some fine details, but some vary in significant aspects:

At the time of the creation of the International Symbol of Accessibility (ISA) several organizations had their individual concepts to indicate accessible facilities. Due to excellent promotion and the inclusion of this symbol into ISO 7000 it was used worldwide and became widely accepted. While most of the older pictograms show a rather static and passive wheelchair user, later designs reflect societal changes also mirrored in language by using the word accessible instead of handicapped and show a move towards displaying active and independent wheelchair users by changing arm position and posture. In this effort to change how people with disabilities are seen, some go even farther and try to signal fast movement like in the variants shown at the bottom of the table. But such symbols ignore the fact that people with more serious disabilities cannot move dynamically and have to rely on some kind of assistance. More information on this discussion can be found for example in the Fact Sheet about the International Symbol of Accessibility, Ben-Moshe et.al. (2007) 'Sign of our times? Revis(it)ing the International Symbol of Access, the website of the The Accessible Icon Project, and many others.

Research data on comprehensibility of symbols concerning accessibility is rather limited in our database:

In a Japanese study to propose domestically unified graphical symbols based on scientific methods, the pictogram variant labeled as Eco-Mo Foundation reached a score of 94.7 in a Comprehension Test according to ISO 9186 FDIS 1999, an excellent value (Eco-Mo Foundation, 2001). In an earlier Comprehension Test (Brugger, 1979), 92 % of the answers concerning the variant from the Austrian standard ÖNORM A 3011 could be classified as correct when applying lenient scoring. Answers at that time were quite heterogeneous, like for example Wheelchair (17 %), Wheelchair User (11 %), Handicapped (34 %), Disabled (10 %), or Route for Disabled (8 %). And in a project from Brazil examining a variant similar to the official ISA symbol, only 22.6 % of the responses were classified as correct regarding the definition: Access for Physical Impaired (Fiori, 2008). In case of this referent strictness of response categorization and scoring is essential for comprehensibility results. We recommend lenient scoring, as respondents often do not provide detailed answers.

Further test data is mostly on specific applications of accessibility symbols or on perception of disability and other related aspects.

Recommendations

At the moment we recommend using a pictogram similar to ISO 7001 public information symbol PI AC 001, formerly PI PF 006, to indicate routes and facilities with full accessibility, including the location of an accessible toilet.

In the long term we suggest development of a pictogram displaying a somewhat more active and independent wheelchair user that could also represent a person with serious disabilities as for example in the variants from Transantiago and the Guemil Project, and include these in a testing program also covering the ISA and ISO 7001 variants as well as the Accessible Icon Project version. Besides aspects concerning the perception of disability such a program should also include a Comprehension Test providing some context information to get realistic results. This method also helps to identify possible misinterpretations and delivers hints to improve designs.

On the other hand quite a number of experts (e.g. comments in Hora, 2017, but also from personal communication) recommend staying with the International Symbol of Accessibility for several reasons. They even reject adaptions made for the ISO 7001 guideline example and advocate using the International Symbol of Accessibility also in the future.

Tests of pictograms of referent Accessible, Full Accessibility

Barstow, B.A., Vice, J., Bowman, S., et al. (2019): Examining perceptions of existing and newly created accessibility symbols. Disability and Health Journal 2019, 12(2): 180-186.

Brugger, Ch. (1979): Abschlußbericht über den Erkennungstest. Report to the Austrian Standards Institute (ON) dated 09/79, Vienna.

Eco-Mo Foundation (2001): Test data of public information symbols in Japan - Procedure for the testing of public information symbols by the Study Committee. ISO: ISO/TC 145/SC 1 N 329.

Fiori, S.R. (2008): Mapas para o turismo e a interatividade - proposta teórica e prática. Tese de Doutorado - Depto. de Geografia, FFLCH-USP.

Jensen, C. (2015): International Symbol of Access: The perception of disability. University of Washington Bothell.

Vice, J., Barstow, B.A., Bowman, S., Mehta, T., Padalabalanarayanan, S. (2020): Effectiveness of the International Symbol of Access and inclusivity of other disability groups. Disability and Health Journal, Volume 13, Issue 1, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dhjo.2019.100836.