This graduate thesis deals with the challenges facing us as we gradually make our urban environments withtheir many public buildings, such as shops, cafés and cinemas, more accessible for disabled people. Theperspective taken is that of the conservationist, who in her or his profession looks to the cultural andhistorical characteristics in buildings and building environments. In order to gain better Accessibility, changesin the physical fabric need to be made, with consideration for the cultural and historical characteristics.The introduction presents the subject of considarate Accessibility. The second chapter deals with the legalaspects concerning the protection of buildings as well as the Accessibility for disabled people. Severalinterviews with different participants are presented here, aiming to tie the legislation to the reality of theconservationist, the disabled, the civil servant working with Accessibility issues and the property owner,whose responsibility it is to make the adjustments necessary to improve Accessibility.

This paper explores the Accessibility for patrons with different physical disabilities in regards to materials, service, the library building and its website at two typical, medium-sized public libraries in Sweden.The case study is based on interviews, observations, and document and literature studies. As a theoretical framework for this study, Buckland?s model of information barriers is used to describe, discuss and evaluate how the two libraries work with Accessibility. In addition, international and national guidelines are used to measure whether additional actions are required of the libraries to improve the Accessibility.The results show that both libraries are well suited in various respects to provide for the different needs and the requirements of patrons with physical disabilities. Some obstacles still exist in both libraries, especially in the lack of literature in accessible formats in different languages.

The Motor Group of the European Council was commissioned in the autumn of 1997 to prepare a proposal for a new European Bus and Coach Directive. In the beginning, most of the Member States did not have the Accessibility requirements as their main concern; still a smaller network with actors from the National delegations from Britain, Germany and Sweden would influence the other National delegations in the Council group to finally agree to retain the requirement of Accessibility of the Directive. Within the EU decision process, the European Disability movement acted as a strong player during the whole negotiation process using the proposal to a new Bus and Coach Directive as a tool to influence key actors to go towards a Directive with a strong approach for Accessibility.Policy Transfer and Policy Transfer Network are used as analytical tools to understand and structure the transfer of the question of Accessibility during the negotiation process. Actors understanding how the bureaucratic process works within the EU decision system have a chance to contributing for the changes in the directions they wishes for within a range of policy areas. The principal aim of the Directive was to guarantee the safety of passengers and to provide technical prescription in particular to wheelchair users.

Akademiska Hus owns and manages the university facilities in most university towns in Sweden. Bilbergska house in Örebro was built in 2008 by Akademiska Hus, and designed by White Architects. Today's buildings must meet Accessibility requirements determined by Swedish Board of Housing, and it is the developer who must ensure that they are fulfilled. Swedish Board of Housing requirements are often vaguely written and interpretation space is large.This report aims to investigate how much of the requirements which are set towards the University and landlord Akademiska Hus are being achieved. This is done by studying the requirements that are set.

Sweden is on the turn of a dramatic demographic change. The number of elderly will in the coming decade increase considerably. This also means that the need of dwellings adapted for Accessibility increases. By adapting dwellings and housing areas to an increased level of Accessibility, more people are given the opportunity to stay for a longer time in their habitual surroundings and the housing becomes secure for the user both in a physical and mental point of view. One of the least accessible housing areas in Halmstad is Klackerup.

The built environment should be accessible for everyone. A residence shall be functional without creating a handicap for people who have a disability from birth, caused by an accident or of old age. A residence that is accessible creates equal conditions for everyone.In this report the Accessibility of newly built blocks of flats in Uddevalla city from 1990 until today are interpreted. One project that is yet to be built is interpreted and compared with the already existing projects. The apartments of seven projects have been analyzed according to today?s regulations of Accessibility.

This report is about Accessibility in a station environment. Studies have been made about how an accessible building should be designed. Accessibility is an important issue when striving for a society with equality as the foundation. Sweden is one of the most accessible countries when speaking about the built environment. A result of prosperity and a well-managed democracy.

The aim of this thesis was twofold, on the one hand to compile a set of usability and Accessibility guidelines in order to establish the characteristics of a user friendly website, and on the other to test these guidelines on eight library webcourses with user education to see how well they adhered to the guidelines. The methods used were literature survey and source studies. The guidelines found in the literature survey were divided into four different categories: document properties, structure and navigability, visual characteristics and Accessibility. In order to establish the adequacy of the guidelines, I examined reference sources, mostly on the web. To a certain extent this examination has been based on HCI Human-Computer interaction theories.

Studies show that older is an increased proportion patients in hospital and that it is a patient group that can be difficult to communicate with because of older patients' often multiple disease picture. Relatives to the patient can be help for caregivers in the communication and the care of the patient. The aim with the study was to examine relative's experience of participation, meeting/support, Accessibility and information on a geriatrics rehabilitation care unit. The study had a descriptive design and was designed as a questionnaire study. It was implemented on one geriatrics rehabilitation care unit on the countryside in central Sweden, belong to Uppsala University hospital.

The general purpose of this work is to study how social welfare offices organization affect Accessibility for those seeking immediate financial assistance in the municipality of Stockholm. Accessibility in this study is principally defined by Swedish Law. The study is based on an empowerment perspective. Data was collected by qualitative interviews of officials in eight social welfare offices. Search path to reach the officials was registered by participant observations.

Today many people with disabilities are excluded from cultural activities. The reason for this is that activities and the environment are not adapted to people with disabilities. The aim of this study is to describe the process to make cultural activities accessible and to describe the importance of good communication between cultural suppliers and their customers. Other questions raised are Accessibility to cultural activities for people with hearing disabilities, the activities in the marketing process, the interaction between theatre companies and its audience and if the interaction has contributed to the theatre's future development. Qualitative interviews with staff responsible for integration at seven theatres have been performed.

There is a need for examining the Accessibility of public web sites and for several reasons. First, public organizations possess considerable amounts information of interest to its citizens and which ought to be easily accessible. Secondly, international and national guidelines for web publishing support the different types of requirements experienced by web users and, in particular, with regard to Accessibility for people with disabilities. The thesis examines the design of public web sites from two different aspects. Web sites can be built up and structured from the management view of the public organization, or, they can be constructed with a view to user needs and requirements.

The aim of this study has been to describe the ongoing region enlargement process in the region Mälardalen, located in the east part of Sweden, and to investigate how this process can affect the local level. The study is especially orientated on public communications and Accessibility. The intention has also been to examine how the local Accessibility can affect the re-gional development in Mälardalen. The local investigation object that has been chosen for this research is the city Strängnäs, situated in the province of Södermanland. The city of Strängnäs and the cities in it?s near geographic surroundings has been the benchmark for this casestudy, in which the local Accessibility with public transportation has been investigated.

The Internet has played an important role for libraries giving them a means of fulfilling their democratic mission of giving equal access to everyone, including people with disabilities. In order to achieve this it is of the utmost importance that they ensure that their web sites are accessible. In this masters thesis we have examined to what extent the web sites are accessible. The thesis is based on theories of human-computer interaction, information architecture, pedagogy and a checklist. The checklist is derived from established international guidelines from W3C, which has been adapted to, and is used by Swedish public authorities to achieve the mission of a ?24-hour authority?.

This thesis aims to increase understanding and knowledge of issues affecting the redevelopment of older office buildings to housing. The rising demand for housing in recent years has resulted in a need and an increase in cost housing projects. The need has led property owners wanting to build old office buildings to apartments. The case study is carried out in Lycksele town and in close contact with consultancy TM (Technician Mercantile) ? consulting, which has operations in the area.