The Little-Known Patterns on British Streets

7.5M views · 9 years ago · explainer · evergreen

Tom Scott explains the tactile paving patterns on British streets, such as the bobbled slabs at crossings and the ridged ones elsewhere, and what each tells blind and partially sighted people. He also explains why the slabs are bright yellow.

HN people use it to show how accessibility measures work for disabled people, and to make the point that many blind people still have some vision.

“Many "blind" people are not 100% blind. Visual impairment is a sliding scale.”

6 comments from Hacker News

E
@EndXA2021 · in “The Little-Known Patterns on British Streets (2017)[video]”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
RecommendsView on HN
k
@kartan2017 · in “UC Berkeley to remove public legacy libraries”
> Finally, moving our content behind authentication allows us to better protect instructor intellectual property from “pirates” who have reused content for personal profit without consent. Or maybe there are other considerations at stake. > For better or worse, large portions of society (especially those found in academia and cities) have decided that a level playing field is more important than having any playing field. That's completely false. What people has decided is that sometimes is worth having a small cost for the big benefit for everyone that it is to have accessibility. Without a more careful case your arguments falls into the Straw Man fallacy. (This fallacy includes an attempt to "prove" an argument by overstating, exaggerating, or over-simplifying the arguments of the opposing side and attacking that "straw man" argument instead of the original one.) > This sort of stuff makes me furious and it's only going to keep happening. I hope that this video helps you to understand what's suggested for help people with disabilities: ▶ this video It is about helping them, not about making things difficult for the rest. If you have the opportunity to talk with some disabled people that have seen their lives improved thanks to this measures probably you are going to be less furious and more happy about it. :)
RecommendsView on HN
d
@davidbarker2017 · in “The Little-Known Patterns on British Streets [video]”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
RecommendsView on HN
o
@open-source-ux2017 · in “The little-known patterns on British streets”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
RecommendsView on HN
S
@SuperQue2022 · in “Sydney CBD is bringing back pedestrian “beg buttons””
Many "blind" people are not 100% blind. Visual impairment is a sliding scale. ▶ this video
d
@dafoex2020 · in “Quest for the Whistler Button”
People who are blind don't necessarily lack vision - that's why the bobbled paving slabs at the edge of crossings and train platforms are bright yellow. [1] Admittedly the LED wouldn't do anything a tactile or audible click wouldn't do here, but a blind user most likely would be able to see that an LED was lit somewhere. [1] ▶ this video