Walmart - Week 8 Assignment PDF

Preview

Summary

Week 8 Assignment ...

Description

Your Name ______________________ Partner’s Name ______________________ Walmart Shopping Experience Complete both activities and record your responses below. If a wheelchair is unavailable, then please do the activity from the vantage point of someone using a wheelchair. Wheelchair 1. What are 4 items that you would be unable to reach (name them and write what aisle/area they are in, they must be from different aisles)? a. Cookie Crisp Cereal, Top Shelf of Aisle 16 b. 1 liter bottle of Pepsi, Middle shelf of Aisle 24 c. Barbecue Lays, 3rd shelf up in Aisle 20 d. Gain Fabric Softening Sheets, Top shelf of Aisle 22 2. Grab a shopping cart. Push down a few aisles before returning it. What are 2 obstacles you found while pushing a shopping cart and shopping? a. The shopping car was taller than the wheelchair so it was difficult to maneuver the cart. After pushing the cart between a few aisles, my hand began to cramp and hurt because it was situated at an upward angle for so long. Another obstacle was that the shopping cart blocked my field of vision and I could not see anything in front of me clearly. This made is difficult to navigate between aisles and caused me to bump into people or items frequently. Another obstacle I noticed was the lack of space. While it is true that Walmart has wider aisles and space to move around, using a wheelchair while pushing a shopping cart was difficult in the space given. It felt cramped and too easy to bump into anything in front of me. 3. Grab an item from the frozen foods department? What do you notice, if anything? a. All the items in the frozen foods department are held behind doors to ensure the items stay cold. It is difficult to hold the door open while reaching for supplies inside. Some doors have the feature that if you extend them far enough, they lock into place and remain open themselves. But this feature is broken on many of the doors so it was up to me to hold the door open while reaching for the item I needed. 4. Grab a 24 pack of coke and put it on your cart. What did you notice? a. My initial problem was the location of the coke. It was placed on the 3rd shelf and was too high to me to grasp. When I was finally able to slide the box near me, I noticed that the pack of coke was too heavy to pick up. It took a lot of effort to pull the box down and get it onto my lap. After taking a breather, it was evident that the difficult part of the task was getting the coke into the cart. The area under the cart (where you place boxes of beverages) was too low and one could fall out of the wheelchair when trying to place items there. I was beginning to notice all of the issues associated with using a shopping cart. 5. Grab a blue basket. Place 5 things in your blue basket and continue shopping with the blue basket. How hard/easy was this? a. Using the blue basket was beneficial but had downsides. It made the shopping experience easier because it took up less space and made it easier to move around. The basket could sit on my lap and I could place things in it as I moved around the store. The issue with the basket was the more items I placed in it, the heavier the basket got.

The basket soon began to hurt my legs and slow me down. Another downside was that I could not hold that many items in the basket and it would often fall out of my lap. 6. Reach into one of the food bins and grab something to put in your basket/cart. What is easy/difficult about this? a. One difficulty associated with this task was that the bins were too tall and it was difficult to see inside of them. It was like playing a guessing game to see which type of bread I was pulling out of the basket. One convenience was that the basket was light so I could easily move it or tip it over and see the selection. 7. What are 2 adjustments you had to make while shopping from a wheelchair? a. One adjustment I made when I was in a wheelchair was body positioning. I had limited movement available in the wheelchair so I had to improvise to be more efficient and comfortable. This would include holding items in my lap or even moving in different positions to avoid hitting people or objects. Another adjustment was that I had to move slower. The wheelchair and shopping cart were difficult to move and made me move at a speed slower than normal. Also, I had to frequently ask for help to reach certain items. 8. How is shopping for clothes? What are some differences from an able-bodied shopping perspective? a. Shopping for clothes was difficult because the hangers were too high to reach and digging between many items to find my size caused my arm to cramp in the process. Another issue was the difficulty with trying the clothes on. While there are accessible fitting rooms available, it was tiring trying to get into the fitting room. Able bodied individuals would easily be able to dig through different hangers and reach clothing on high shelves without having any issues. 9. Try on a clothing item. What did you notice? a. The first issue I ran into was that the handicap accessible fitting room was occupied so one would have to wait to try their clothes one, despite other rooms being open. The room was also located in the corner and slightly hard to access. 10. Check out the greeting cards? How is the selection? Can you see/reach them all? Why is this a problem, how can you solve this problem? a. The selection for greeting cards is great but only a few are available in my line of view. I could only see 3 rows up, thus limiting my selection. This is an issue because if I was shopping for birthday cards, they were available on the top few shelves and I could not see them. The solution to this issue would be to ask for assistance from an employee or a friend. Another solution would be to have each category of cards spread out by column instead of row. 11. What is it like being the guide (explanations) or friend of the person in the chair? a. It is difficult being the guide of a person in a wheelchair because while they are independent, they do require assistance to help facilitate many of their tasks. They can do everything that an able-bodied individual can do but they require more effort. As the friend for that person, you are there to help ensure they don’t strain themselves doing routine tasks. It is also difficult because individuals bound to wheelchairs will not be quick to ask for help so it is up to you to identify when they need help and make sure you can support them without making them feel bad about themselves. Blind/Sighted Guide 1. Pick out toys that are beneficial for someone that is blind. Why are they good selections? a. Toys like Bop It, Dominos with raised dots, Braille go fish cards, shapes and sounds puzzles and beeping foam soccer balls are great ideas for toys for someone that is blind.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

These toys are a great selection because they make sounds and have more textures, allowing a blind individual to identify the object and use another motor skill like touch or sound to play with it. After completing and shopping what do you notice (3 things) about the way the store is set up and the impact it has if you were blind. a. One thing I noticed is that the shelves at the end of the aisles have too many edges, which can result in injuries for individuals that are blind. If they were making a sharp turn or were accidentally pushed, the shelves at the ends of the aisles could harm them. Another thing I noticed was that there were too many fallen objects on the ground, and this would cause a blind person to trip on them. It was also very easy to run into people because of narrow pathways. One beneficial thing I notices was that things (like groceries, cleaning products, electronics or pharmacy products) were categorized neatly in sections and were easy to find. What sections of the store are differentiated by carpet/tile. What is the advantage/disadvantage of this? a. The area containing clothing items for women, men, and kids has carpet on the ground. The rest of the sections like electronics, grocery and pharmacy have tile on the ground. Advantages of separating these sections would be that blind individuals would be able to notice a difference in the flooring and identify that they are in a different section of the store. While this is a great idea, it is not ideal because they would not be able to identify which section of the store they are in without getting guidance. Pick out a cd/dvd that you enjoy, how doable is this on your own? With help? a. This task is impossible for blind individuals and very difficult for people with visual impairments. The dvd’s are all located in a bin and one would need to dig through the bin while reading multiple titles to pick out the dvd of their preference. Considering an individual has a vision impairment, they would not be able to look through multiple titles without straining their eyes. They would require guidance from a friend or employee to pick out a cd or dvd from the selection. Pick out matching clothes and find a few items that go together? What are the items? How did you go about this? a. This was a difficult task considering I had a visual impairment so I would ask for assistance from a friend. I described the outfit I had in mind and had my friend lead me to that item and decide if I liked it. If I choose the item, she would pick out my size and lead me to the next item. With this process, I was able to pick out a white blouse, black denim jeans, black combat boots, and a set of gold bangles. Find the shortest check-out line? What is the best way to checkout? How can you ensure proper treatment? a. The best way to checkout was by waiting in line and having a cashier check out for me. While self-checkout did have the shortest line, it would be difficult to scan each item while bagging and checking the prices. Using the line with a cashier, I could ensure that my items would be bagged, placed into my cart and they would read the total out to me. Distinguish between brands of two different items. What were the items? Besides having your guide tell you what are other ways you could distinguish them once you were familiar with the brands? a. The item that I choose was potato chips. There was a large variety of potato chips but I went to differentiating between Lays original potato chips and Jays original potato chips. Both brands were very similar and the products were near identical. The key difference was the color of the plastic bags. The Lays bag was a vibrant yellow while the jays bag was a vibrant blue color. If I could not distinguish the different by vibrancy

of the different colors or texture of the bag, my next solution would be to ask for employee assistance. 8. What is it like being the guide (explanations) or friend of the person that was blind? a. Similar to being the guide for an individual in a wheelchair, it is very difficult. There are many tasks that cannot be completed without assistance and they may be too embarrassed to ask for help so it is vital to always be friendly and helpful. Many of the tasks are very simple but it is important to understand that in the point of view of a person with a visual impairment, even the simplest tasks can become daunting. 9. Find out the prices of a few items? How can you do this? Are there any scanners? Do they speak? a. One way to check for the prices of items is to ask a friend or employee for the price. Another thing that you could do it walk towards a scanner and check the price on there. Many of the scanners do not speak but they do have a button that allows people to call for assistance, and the nearest employee would come there and provide help. 10. What are 2 ways Wal-Mart could make the store friendlier for people with visual impairments? a. One way that Wal-Mart could make the store better for people with visual impairments is by having signage and employee uniforms that are visible but not too bring. Easy to read signs that are eye-level, instead of towards the ceiling, will make it easier for people to maneuver. The uniforms will help people identify employees for assistance but the colors will not be too bright so their eyes feel harmed. Another suggestion is having employees available to help people with impairments. Considering Wal-Mart is such a large business and they are able to hire greeters, they would also be able to hire personal shoppers or aides that could walk around with the people with visual impairments and help them locate items....