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106 INTERNATIONAL SYMBOL OF ACCESS
pointing forward The wheelchair icon was designed to indicate accessible entrances, routes, and facilities within buildings. In its many iterations, the International Symbol of Access (ISA) points to the right, serving as a directional sign.
1965 From Building Standards for the Handicapped, National Research Council, Canada.
1967 Symbol designed by Paul Arthur & Associates for Expo 67.
How did the wheelchair become the universal sign for access? This always confused me. I am disabled but don’t
use a wheelchair. In fact, wheelchairs
are necessary for a very small subset of individuals with mobility disabilities, to say nothing of the range of disabilities that don’t involve physical mobility at all. For years, that symbol troubled me. Over time, I grew to harbor a vague grudge against it. Can only wheelchair users park in special spaces? Am I allowed to sit in the specially designated seats at an airport or theater? Each time I used one of those accom- modations, I would ask myself if I was “disabled enough” to use them. But, as I’ve aged, I find that I really have no choice—I need that extra help and really can’t stand around pondering this.
Researching this history helped me see this as more than a communications prob- lem. The modern wheelchair, like the sym- bol, is actually a very recent invention. The wheelchair was a game-changer for many disabled people. Newly mobile wheelchair users became the first group to advocate for equal rights. The chair seemed a good embodiment of the drive for equal access.
You use the term misfit design. What does this mean, exactly? Misfit is a word with many meanings. On the one hand, the wheelchair symbol announces a basic misfit between disabled bodies and the built environment. Ramps, elevators, and other accommodations are included as add-ons to help disabled people function in spaces that were not designed or fitted for them.
But also, disabled people have often been cast as social misfits. By the nine- teenth century, many disabled people were segregated from society, left unedu- cated, and lived their entire lives at home or in special schools, hospitals, and care facilities. Still others were poor, beggars, or lived on the margins of society. They had trouble fitting in socially.
At the same time, the wheelchair symbol itself is something of a misfit design. Remember that it underwent a kind of retrofit. It was originally meant to repre- sent a wheelchair, but the requirement to humanize the symbol led to the addition
of a large circle representing a head. The result is not a successful design—I would call it a design misfit.