ACESS - Making Theme Parks Accessible

Theme parks, the quintessential escape from reality, have been the haven for generations of people looking forward to escaping reality for a bit. However, these multi-million-dollar enterprises have overlooked a large portion of our society, mainly paraplegics, amputees, and other mobile challenged individuals. River rapids ride attractions provide a perfect example of this, by their nature, these rides have a lot of variables: free-flowing rivers (essentially track less), continuous motion, freely moving, and in constant contact with water to name a few. All of which pose a variety of problems for the mobility challenged. By investigating the user's needs through means such as videos, reviews and interviews new solutions can be created. Utilizing this data, solution found in related industries, the need for comfort from both disabled and non-disabled alike, and the intrinsic attributes of this attraction all come together to create a holistic, user focused, experience. Utilizing these findings INVERT and ACESS were created to solve the accessibility issues with river rapids ride systems and in hopes that these design ideologies can be carried across all theme park aspects, making them a fully accessible experience.