Our society in general tends to maintain a public space that is minimally accessible to “everyone”. Much rather, it is minimally accessible to most people, statistically speaking.

That means, people that have difficulty reading small stuff, people with manual handicaps, people that are hard of hearing, wheelchair users and others are meant to have a hard time. By design, so to say.

So I was extremely surprised to realize that around 3-4 years ago, Hero marmalade glasses started to become a lot easier to open. Then I was very surprised to see how cash register clerks in supermarkets started to be increasingly helpful when one tries to lug stuff with just one hand and half arm or so. And then…. this? Supermarket carts with magnifying glasses?

As you can see, these carts all contain cart-mounted magnifying glasses. It is a new thing for our region here, but not new for Switzerland in general. There was a post about trolleys in a COOP from Geneva in 2009. The magnifying glass apparently is a Swiss product that was developed and is being sold by Walutec.

Functionally, that marks the end of the need for reading glasses – at least inasmuch as supermarkets are concerned.

Way to go.

One day there might be manipulation aids built-in, in cars, bath rooms, on work benches and whatnot. That then will be the end of prosthetic arms. At least for the places where these are getting built in.