I am visually impaired and I have found that there are churches with no provision for the partially sighted and I would like to offer a few suggestions.
It is a great help if service sheets are provided in Big Print, Arial 16 is good and clear, dense black on white is usually the easiest to read with a magnifying glass. It is preferable to have the sheets enlarged via a computer on no bigger that A4, magnification done on a photo-copier comes on huge sheets of paper and is grey and difficult to decipher. It is disappointing to go to any service, Sunday morning, Christening, Wedding, Funeral and feel excluded from the service because of the impossibility of reading the service sheets. In our parish we found that once the Rector started providing bigger print more people than expected found it useful. Any other literature, such as prayer diaries or weekly notice sheets are useful in the same format.
Big Print hymn books are sometimes available but, for me, they are too small print and not densely black. Overhead projection is a useful tool for the normally sighted but for anyone with poor sight the screen is a hopeless blur of light.
It is also helpful for those who cannot see well to have white lines at the edges of dark steps and black at the edges of white steps. If the steps are open it is safer if the lines are extended round the sides of the steps.
Mrs Una M Dean
Cowley Parish, Oxford
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