Case Study - Design for Accessibility in Vending Machines

A vending machine, as an alternative to retail stores, has the biggest advantages of accessibility regardless of the limitation in space and human service; thus their purpose should include convenience, time-efficiency and accessibility. However, the low delivery slots and their heavy doors force users to bend or squat down. Such design occurs widely in a global scale, so I assumed that it is specially designed for the accessibility for a curtain group of people. To justify such claim, I related my thoughts to measurements and further researches.

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Physiologically accessibility

The low slot forces people to get the articles from vending machines with an uncomfortable position, and such bending-over and back-curving posture creates a great deal of pressure on the spine. For young people, it can be

just inconvenient, but for the elderly and people with back pain, it can disable them to access the vending machine. In fact, this is not a small amount of people: 39% of adults say low back pain has affected their ability to engage in tasks of daily living, and such curvature when picking things makes the vending machine painful for them to use. Now that it is justified that the accessibility for people with physical health issue, and I moved on to justify if such sacrifice is for wheelchair accessibility.

Wheelchair accessibility

The slot from the ground is 29” high[a] (but the actual bottom of the delivery bin is only 10”), and the highest necessary port is 57” high[a]. Besides, the only machine which accepts Tcard has its Tcard swiping port 68” high[b]. Though this machine is unobstructed, such distances still don’t meet the requirements of wheelchair accessibility, as shown in figure 1, 2. The bottom of bin where people pick food up is too low for wheelchair and the upper parts are not reachable.

Would this accessibility of wheelchair be sacrificed for vision accessibility? I assumed that the range of usable height (48” -15” = 33”) is a reason why the slots are low: for the dialling board to be located horizontally about user’s eyes, the delivery slot which requires less visual accuracy needs to be placed at the bottom. To justify this thought, I moved on to the next target, the dialling board and screen.

Sensing accessibility

Most buttons in elevators in U of T are paired with braille so that they are available to people with vision incompetent. Such service does not exist in any vending machines in Robarts Library[d]; even worse, the screen’s height only matches a standing person’s vision[c], not being accessible for people with shorter height or on wheelchairs. However, according to the APA compliant, these vending machine services should be able to be differentiated by sound or touch. Challenge is that the information that users need is far more than the number buttons as in an elevator, which means that braille numbers alone is not enough. Accessibility to the information of food and drinks is still not realized in public vending machines, but there are ongoing design projects; ideas range from a management app that operates the machine like Siri to audio technology.

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My original assumption was that the usability of vending machines in Robarts Library is compromised for accessibility, but it was rebutted by the key features discussed in this report: the low slots are accessible for neither people with lower back pain or wheelchair users, the screen and payment operators are located too high for shorter people or wheelchair users to use, and the screen and buttons deny access of vision impaired customers.

As a convenience service provider, the vending machines have given me a higher expectation in accessibility than how they actually perform. However, such expectation is not unreachable. The problem of delivery slot height can be solved by using a belt to deliver the articles to a higher position, and the other operators can be adjusted to more accessible places as well. When it comes to vision impairment, the current technology of artificial intelligence has already gone beyond what a vending machine needs to help the user complete his/her purchase.

In short, there is a huge space for vending machines like the ones in Robarts library to improve, as long as their designers and manufacturers are willing to adjust their current design for better accessibility.