Campus doors and the forces produced by and required of an impaired user population

Includes bibliographical references (page 39)At least one relatively easily corrected situation\ud may tend to handicap certain impaired users on the\ud California State University, Northridge campus. This\ud situation is the presence of campus doors which require\ud forces to operate that exceed the ability of some\ud mobility, activity, or manually impaired users to\ud provide. This study was conducted to explore the\ud conditions found on the California State University,\ud Northridge campus, and examine the force capabilities of\ud the impaired user population that interacts with it on a\ud frequent basis. Linear horizontal push and pull forces,\ud as well as torque forces, required to operate campus\ud doors were surveyed, as were those forces produced by the\ud impaired users. In addition, subjects were timed as they\ud attempted to operate a door mock-up adjustable for the\ud amount of force required to open the door. The values of\ud the door tension levels for the task were determined\ud based on the results of the surveys of forces, and on the\ud ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard for\ud door opening force. The subjects were allowed to\ud self-style how they would execute the tasks. An ability\ud to produce a criterion amount of force was found to be\ud unreliable as the sole indicator of an ability to perform\ud the task. This was explained as being due mainly to the\ud interaction between a person's capabilities and the task\ud requirements. Task difficulty at different door tension\ud levels was measured as reflected in task accomplishment\ud times. The selected door tension levels were found to\ud have a significant effect on task difficulty as\ud experienced by the subjects. The results of this study\ud indicate that the operational demands on campus tend to\ud have a handicapping effect on certain users with\ud impairments who might otherwise not be handicapped