Playground Design: An evaluation tool for the creation of inclusive play experiences

Playing in its widest meaning involves physical, sensory and social/emotional aspects. With this in mind, designing play equipment as much as possible integrated throughout and inclusive is of great social importance but also a challenging issue, especially due to the complexity of variables intervening between product requirements and user capabilities. The research work presented proposes a novel methodology for assessing the level of inclusion when designing play experiences. A cross- correlating tool based on accessibility standards and disability descriptors was developed and validated with on field experiments and interviews. This approach allows to get an immediate feedback and reliable information on the level of inclusiveness of any type of game equipment and user disability. With the final aim of designing inclusive play experiences, the developed cross- correlation tool was also exploited for supporting the creation of novel design concepts of sensory/cognitive play, which are here presented.