Building Inclusive Spaces

Starbucks Announces New Accessibility Guidelines for its U.S. Store Portfolio - Seite 2

Starbucks Debuts Inclusive Spaces Framework in Washington D.C. Store on Feb. 16

The first Starbucks store to be built using the Inclusive Spaces Framework guidelines opens on Friday, Feb. 16. in Washington D.C., at Union Market (331 N Street, NE, Washington, D.C. 20002). Learn more about the partners at the Starbucks store at Union Market and take a virtual tour of the new cafe.

Bringing the Inclusive Spaces Framework to Life

The Inclusive Spaces Framework aims to bring more inclusive innovation in physical and digital spaces, while enabling Starbucks to scale the accessibility across its store portfolio.

Some of the physical and digital features that Starbucks will begin to incorporate include:

• Updated Point-of-Sale (POS): The updated point-of-sale (POS) system is customized to meet the needs of more partners and customers. It’s now portable for improved ease of use with customers, has an adjustable angle stand for better visibility, an intuitive and customizable layout, offers voice assist and screen magnification, shows images of menu items to support language diversity and provides visual order confirmation to help ensure order accuracy.
• Customer Order Status Boards: Customer order status boards will offer customers visual update on where their order is in the process, and when it’s ready to be picked up – providing multiple ways of communicating.
• Power-Operated Doors: Wherever possible, doors to store entrances will include a longer vertical push button that is easier to activate from more heights and angles, designed to reduce the effort required to open the door.
• Optimized Acoustics and Lighting: Acoustics and lighting features help create a more inclusive auditory and visual experience for customers and partners. Stores will use materials to reduce unwanted background noise and reverberation that can interfere with assistive devices like hearing aids, and lighting that minimizes glare, shadow patterns and backlighting that can impede visual communication.
• Inclusive Equipment Design: Starbucks Clover Vertica brewer was built to include a more accessible store experience for our partners including design features such as a larger dial and button that protrude for a more accessible reach and visual and haptic confirmation, including a light to notify when brewing is complete.
• Paths of Travel: Store designs will create a continuous, unobstructed pedestrian path, allowing people to approach, enter, explore, enjoy and exit the store with ease where possible. This includes open sightlines, barrier free pathways with more accessible wayfinding to accommodate varying heights, distances and iconography.
• Connection: To nurture a culture of connection between customers and partners, counters are lower with overhangs to accommodate wheelchair access and support better communication when picking up food and beverages.

“Starbucks opening of their new store built with inclusive design elements is a big moment as we try to make retail spaces more accessible and inclusive,” said Tony Coelho, a former U.S. congressman, primary author and sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). “We have to go beyond just what is required to put accessibility and inclusion first to ensure all people feel like they belong in community spaces.”