Design
Designing for visual impairment
Taking sight loss into account is essential when designing for the care home environment. Rachel Warrington, partner and design manager at iDesign Interiors, looks at current best practice when it comes to incorporating design features to assist those living with sight loss, with particular reference to RNIB’s Visibly Better accreditation scheme
According to The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) there are over two million people in the UK living with sight loss. Some 340,000 of this group are registered blind or partially sighted, with nearly 80 per cent being 65 or older, and around 60 per cent over 75. These figures are significant because
the prevalence of sight loss increases with age. One in five people aged 75 – and one in two people aged 90 or over – are living with sight loss, and the projected estimate for the number of people who will be living with sight loss in the UK by 2050 is 4,145,000. With these figures in mind, anyone designing for the care environment has a responsibility to incorporate features to assist those living with sight loss. To that end, RNIB has been running a ground-breaking scheme of certification for those operators wishing to commit to best practice. RNIB’s Visibly Better accreditation scheme is currently aimed at social landlords in Wales who have older people residing in independent living schemes or care homes within their housing portfolio. According to RNIB: The scheme does not replace the Care
Quality Commission (CQC) standards but seeks to compliment the CQC requirements through the continuous development of staff knowledge and skills, to create home environments that enhance quality of living. Visibly Better provides a unique support
structure that advances the quality of living for residents with sight loss and empowers staff to confidently improve residents’ independence and mobility through simple adaptations to the environment.1 RNIB offers a comprehensive system of consultancy, audits, and training schemes. Members work towards achieving bronze through to platinum level certification
January 2024
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com
depending on their achievements within six key areas.
Explaining LRV values – colour and contrast Light Reflectance Value (LRV) plays a key role in the design process. LRV is a value given to a surface on a scale of 1 to 100 based on the percentage of light it reflects – where zero is a perfect black and 100 is a perfect white. In practice, however, black may have an LRV reading of about 6, and white about 85. Dark, matt, and textured surfaces absorb a larger amount of light, and therefore have lower reflectance values. Light or shiny surfaces generally have a higher LRV rating. Therefore, wherever possible, designers
Anyone designing for the care environment has a responsibility to incorporate features to assist those living with sight loss
should use matt surfaces, as even mid-sheen surfaces can cause pooling of light, which can be confusing for people with degrees of sight loss.
It is the contrast between the LRV values of different adjoining or adjacent surfaces which is key to practical design. A LRV contrast value of less than 10 creates the perception of no depth and is perfect for places where you want your residents to move independently, such as across flooring thresholds. For example, we would choose adjacent flooring types with similar LRV values and therefore a low LRV contrast value, avoiding distressing visual distortions such as seeing a ‘step into a void’. “An effectively contrasted environment will
reduce the risk of injury by enabling people to see edges between surfaces and perceive depth and difference more easily.” Linda Mitchell, VILD2
Critical surfaces and key features Where more contrast is needed to see an object clearly; for example, signage, stair
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