beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

I am really abidingly annoyed with places that list all the ways to contact them
often as accessability features
and when you email them
they tell you
to
phone.

That's it, that's all, that's 100% of what they can do by email,
tell you to use the phone.

*sigh*

I seen some posts go past on tumblr about accessability,
and it made me think again about how frustrating it is even for me getting to activities.

Like, I like the Ribs of Beef, but it is not wheelchair accessable, it's not good for people with sticks, the loos are down stairs and the seats are up steps, and I am not a fan of stairs. And as for my sensory needs... it's fine if there's no one else there and the owners are willing to turn the tv off. Which means it is very seldom suitable. And yet, still better than several alternatives we tried.

The other pubs we tried have steps and LOUD music and... just didn't work.

The venues for the board games group used to be fine, nice accessible hall, but now it's up stairs that made my helper go on about risk assessments and keep repeating they don't think is good for me to do that ever again. I agree, tall concrete stairs, very faily. No good for sticks or wheels or even vaguely wobbly people. There was a stairlift but no idea how to use it. Don't know where the bathrooms were but can be pretty sure they have the same level of access.

When people switch venues they just don't have access in mind. Convenience for them, yes, whether or not people can get in, not so much, no.

I kind of want to start with the venue. Find a good place. Just, wheelchair access, plenty of space in the loo, big tables. I'm not keen on alcohol but it seems a key component to some social groups. And food is nice. Start with all that and you've narrowed down places that are even open in the evening by a Lot. Like, seriously, A Lot. I don't know where we'd go. But if we start from there, and then decide what to do in said venue, we haven't slammed the door on anyone before we get started.

... no group for my interests in Norwich I can currently think of does that.

... well that's a bit rubbish.

I mean Waterstones cafe is quite nice and there's a lift but I don't know what the disabled loos are like and I know I gave up on the book group because I couldn't hear past the background noise.

The Forum is nice but the main bit echoes. Also I have no idea if there's bits available as a meeting place for like a half dozen people or small groups.

I guess I don't know many places.

But I keep trying to join groups and then finding them inaccessible and then just, like, giving up
and I'm thinking today I could try saying so instead.

Or starting my own thing
but organising things requires a level of reliability and extroversion I do not possess.

Oh well.

Fortean Times this month has a section in white letters on a black background. Which sounds reasonable but the printing isn't quite crisp enough to pull it off - makes the letters skinny fuzzy and pretty much unreadable. I mean with a strong light and a magnifying glass, maybe. And I don't think it's just my eyes. Probably. Just another example of a color scheme that must have looked fine on the computer.

It's going straight to my 'web page of woe! arrrgh!' overused routine of grrr.

I know people have lots of different monitors with lots of different settings, and I know the colors look entirely different on each of my laptops and my desktop, and I know some people have the brightness/contrast turned up a lot higher (sometimes when I have a headache the brightness goes down to single figures and I can still read it. One time with a headache I could read by the glow from the TV when it had a theoretically black screen. Old TV though.) So I have to assume that everyone who builds a webpage can see it. But really, black on white is classic for a *reason*.

And white on black only works on a nice crisp screen, not a fuzzy printout.


/rant