YHA London Thameside Autism Friendly Award

Hostel award win for providing an autism-friendly environment and inclusive customer service

Role: designer
Stakeholder: YHA (England & Wales)
Sectors: charity, hospitality
Deliverables: on-site signage review and update, bespoke pre-visit information sheets

The National Autistic Society awarded YHA London Thameside the Autism Friendly Award for the hostel's accessible services, environment and pre-visit information it provides.

Accessibility
Design
Information
Wayfinding

YHA London Thameside sensory map showing a simplified map of the hostel's ground floor with icons indicating fire exits, stairs and sensory keys for areas that are noisy, crowded, have bright light or strong smells — Sensory map (top) and access guide with clickable table of contents, tags/reading order and alternative text for images

Example pages of the hostel access guide pdf set in clear print on an off-white background with a clickable table of contents and sections about the main entrance and public areas with images — Sensory map (top) and access guide with clickable table of contents, tags/reading order and alternative text for images

The Autism Friendly Award celebrates organisations that commit to providing support and a welcoming environment for guests who are on the autism spectrum. The award looks at 3 categories: accessible services, accessible environment and accessible information.

When YHA London Thameside, YHA (England & Wales) largest and most modern groups hostel, went through refurbishment, the EDI team and the hostel manager decided to improve the hostel's accessibility for neurodivergent guests, using the Autism Friendly Award criteria as a benchmark.

I worked together with the project team on categories 2 and 3 to improve accessibility of the hostel environment and available guest information. The award's first category, accessible services, mainly looks at staff training and awareness.

The environment category looks at the sensory input of public spaces such as sounds, lights and colour or contrasts as well as the signage that helps people navigate the space. I reviewed internal and external signage at the hostel and recommended amends to signage positioning, iconography and colour palette within brand guidelines.

The information category looks at the information that is provided for guests to help them prepare for their visit. I was leading on this category and initiated and organised a review of the existing access guide with all relevant stakeholders before designing a new, more accessible template. Parallel to the new access guide I developed a sensory map of the hostel in close collaboration with the hostel manager, the Health & Safety team and the copywriter. Both documents are available for download on the hostel page, although the plan is to change the access guide from pdf format to web page to further improve accessibility. We also started working on a visual story for the hostel but had to pause development and are hoping to be able to make this document available soon.