Responses of the Public to Residential Universal Design Features

Margaret A. Christenson, MPH, OTR, FAOTA¹
Tamara Mills ^{2, 3}, OTR/L, Margo B. Holm ^{2, 3} PhD, OTR/L FAOTA
Lifease, Inc. Minneapolis, MN ¹
Dept. of Occupational Therapy, University of Pittsburgh ^2,3
Dept. of Rehabilitation Science & Technology, University of Pittsburgh ^2,3

Although the trend is changing, in the past Universal Design and accessible features were rarely consciously included when homes were built by people that have not experienced a disability. The purpose of this study was to gather information concerning the public’s awareness and reactions to Universal Design (UD) features that were incorporated into a luxury home.

This home was unusual in that it was built for a middle-aged couple, neither of whom has problems that warranted immediate accessible features. However, they plan to make this home their retirement home, therefore a primary design focus was that the features provide accessibility throughout their lifetime despite any lifestyle changes. They wished these features to be unobtrusive, part of the natural design, not appear institutional or as an after thought.

The home was included in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota Fall 2000 Parade of Homes. The Parade of Homes is a semi-annual event that provides builders an opportunity to showcase their most outstanding models. Since the architect/builder of this home is well known in the area for the luxurious nature and quality craftsmanship of his houses, many people tour his homes.

Little data on the public’s awareness, desire and willingness to pay for UD or accessible features is available. Since we knew many people would tour the home we felt it was an excellent opportunity to survey the public’s response to what they saw. With the cooperation of the builder and the owners, our company took on the task of designing, administering and compiling a one-page survey to ascertain the public’s awareness of the accessible aspects within the home. This home provided an opportunity to obtain information from people who visited the home, concerning their knowledge about and response to UD. The survey included the level of importance the public placed on various selected features, and their responses to the inclusion of UD features in their current and future homes.

The survey consisted of 21 questions. The first 8 questions focused on the importance of the following UD features in the house: (1) lever door handles to make it easier to open doors, (2) easy to reach light switches and raised outlets, (3) an exterior ramp for improved accessibility and mobility, (4) an elevator for ease in moving self and items between floors, (5) devices and modifications to increase kitchen convenience, (6) bathroom features (i.e., roll-in shower, grab bar by the toilet) to increase ease of use, (7) interactive screens to monitor home security from any room in the house, and (8) non-slip limestone floors to increase safety, comfort, and ease of movement.

Participants ranked the importance of the UD features using a 4 point Likert scale (4 = very important to 1 = not very important at all). Using the same scale, the next question asked participants to rate the overall importance of including the UD features viewed, in their own homes upon retirement. Seven additional questions were rated using a dichotomous scale, and addressed the following factors: (1) consideration of UD features in current homes, (2) presence of similar UD features in current homes, (3) consideration of UD features in future homes, (4) recognition of the accessibility symbol in the Parade of Homes^SM program, (5) influence of the accessibility symbol on the decision to visit the house, (6) support of government policies to promote UD features, and (7) perceived increase in resale value for a home with UD features.

Next, participants were asked to rate their expectations of UD features in a house displaying the accessibility symbol.This item was rated using a 4 point Likert scale (4 = much better than expected to 1 = much worse than expected). A scale of 0%, 1-3%, 4-6%, and 7-10% was used to determine perceived increase in total cost for a house with UD features, and willingness of the participants to pay an increased cost to include UD features in their homes. Demographic characteristics consisting of age and gender were also gathered. After visiting the home, 1,656 completed and returned the survey. Data were analyzed using SPSS. Exploratory data analyses were conducted first, followed by descriptive statistics, including cross tabulations.

RESULTS

A typical survey respondent was a female (67%) between the ages of 31-45 (33%) (see Table 1). The UD features in the house rated as most important, in order of magnitude were: (1) kitchen devices and modifications (95%), (2) lever door handles (92%), (3) non-slip limestone floors (92%), (4) bathroom features (89%), (5) an exterior ramp (88%), (6) easy to reach light switches and raised outlets (87%), (7) interactive screens to monitor home security (79%), and (8) an elevator (76%). For all UD features, less than 4% of the respondents rated these features as not important at all. Overall, a greater number of respondents (94%) thought it was important to include UD features in their homes upon retirement, and no respondents thought UD features should not be included in their retirement homes. Table 2 displays the level of importance of the UD features in the house.

Most (77%) of the respondents did not have similar UD features in their current homes. Fifty-two percent had considered including UD features in their current homes, compared to 48% who had not. However, 85% would consider including UD features in a future home.

Of those that had included features, 138 had lever door handles, 59 had pull out drawers and other features in the kitchen, 40 had heated limestone floors, 39 had rocker light switches, 34 had a roll-in shower and/or grab bars, 32 had wide doors and /or hallways, 23 had exterior ramps, 9 had raised outlets, 3 had elevators, and some respondents indicated having a raised toilet, low or no threshold, raised dishwasher, raised dryer, stair glide, remote door latch, etc.

Slightly more (51%) respondents noticed the accessibility symbol in the Parade of Homes^SM program than those (49%) who did not. For the respondents that noticed the accessibility symbol, 23% reported that it influenced their decision to visit the house. In addition, most (59%) respondents thought the UD features included in the house were much better than they expected for a house displaying the accessibility symbol; whereas 39% thought the UD features were about what they expected to see. The findings also indicated that a greater (61%) number of respondents did not favor government policies to promote UD features.

Forty-four percent of the respondents thought the features would increase the cost of the home by 7-10%, followed by 36% reporting a 4-6% increase. However, eighty-one percent reported UD features would also increase the resale value of the universally designed house. Thirteen percent were willing to pay a 7-10% increase in total cost, 42% of respondents were willing to pay a 4-6% increase, and 37% were willing to pay a 1-3% increase in the total cost for a house with UD features.

Additionally, for the 48% of the respondents who did not have UD features in their current homes, 74% would consider and 26% would not consider including UD features in their future homes.Of the 52% of the respondents that have included UD features in their current homes, 96% would also consider UD features in their future homes.

All respondents who did (51%) or did not (49%) notice the accessibility symbol responded (98%) that the UD features in the house were better or about what was expected (Table 3). Two percent indicated that the features were worse than expected.

For the majority of the respondents (85%) that would consider UD features in their future homes, 41% were willing to pay a 4-6% increase in total cost, followed by 39% who were willing to pay a 1-3% increase, and 16% who were willing to pay a 7-10% increase in total cost for UD features in their future homes.

DISCUSSION
Upon completion of the tour, many visitors indicated a desire to make UD features a more permanent aspect of their current and future living environments. Comments such as: “I think many of the features do not need to be more expensive than conventional features. It just requires thought”; “All homes need to include accessibility when being built”; “It would be much easier to have elderly and people with disabilities visit your home”; “Very nice. Features I didn’t know existed”; Considered these features? Not before This”. However, the results varied for how much respondents were willing to pay for UD features.

Although the majority of respondents thought UD features important, they did not perceive a need to have federally supported guidelines to promote UD features. This may indicate the public still perceives UD features as “special” features that are based on individual need and choice, thus not warranting federal attention or monies to make UD features available to everyone. However, several qualified their answers with suggestions that government policies for homes should promote and encourage Universal Design but not mandate it’s inclusion.

It is unclear why some respondents’ responses were not higher for a house displaying the accessibility symbol. It may be that these responses were from individuals who wanted the home more accessible than it was, since the general negative comments that were received dealt primarily with accessibility issues , i. e. “elevator too narrow for many electric wheelchairs”; “more than one entrance should be accessible”; “better access to the back yard”, etc.

Homebuilders and homebuyers stand to gain tremendously by building accessible and barrier-free homes that eliminate the need for retrofitting or adaptations as the person ages or has special physical needs (e.g., pregnancy, elderly parents, incapacitation, etc.). Marketing strategies must be able to communicate the value and desirability of UD in order to eliminate the negative perceptions that UD is only for “special populations”.Overall, the findings of the survey indicated that the public was positive about UD in housing once they experienced it.

Acknowledgements
Lifease wishes to thank: 1) the Department of Occupational Therapy and the Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology of the University of Pittsburgh for input on the formulation of the survey and the analysis of the data, 2) student and faculty volunteers from the Occupational Therapy Departments of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota and the College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, Minnesota who were on site distributing the surveys.