I just sent out our first “Congratulations! You have been accepted for BluePath membership!” letter. I hope they get this letter before they see this blog. Our first BluePath member is the Q Cafe. It’s a music venue with an open mic on Tuesday nights and concerts with local musicians. They serve up coffee and tea. It’s a nice, wide open space.
Just like any place, it’s not 100% accessible because they have an ‘old school’ ramp with a handrail on only the left side. But, the cafe itself is very usable – we just need to tell all the musicians not to fall to the right on their way up to the stage!
The second newest BluePath member is Sound Mind and Body Gym. They were so awesome because they were the very first ones to say “yeah, we’ll take your survey! We want to be user-friendly!” After going through the checklist, we found that their gym it totally accessible! But the company that did their parking lot didn’t put in enough accessible parking spaces and the ramp is a just a little too steep – although it’s manageable. The problem here is that it somehow passed city code. This is the kind of thing that makes accessibility confusing and frustrating for everyone. And how we hope to help!
Lots of places are just sooo close in terms of offering accessible features that are just a little off. No wonder BluePath is one of the few organizations attempting to do this! But why not try to help business be as usable as possible, describe what they’ve got, and then put it out there as a resource? And meanwhile, trying to get more customers to go to that business because they are making an effort to serve customers with disabilities?
We think it’s a good idea. www.blue-path.com
