So, my name is Leighanne Higgins and I'm a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Lancaster University Management School.

My work on disability access to marketplace and commercial settings began in 2015 - 2016.

I wanted to understand what were the barriers to access to commercial settings for persons with disabilities, and as part of that I travelled with a wonderful charity called The Jumbulance Trust.

There were so many things that the people I was working with couldn't do and were reliant and needed assistance with.

But there were these beautiful, creative ways that they expressed their sense of self. and I just thought, how great would it be if instead of us doing the traditional interview, we actually heard their experiences or saw their experiences through the way that they actually express their sense of self through their creative talents. And also, in doing that, I thought that way we're prioritising ability over disability. We're not looking at what they can't do, we're looking at what they can do and we're prioritising that, and from that, we can learn about commercial experiences and how the marketplace could actually change to better include persons with disabilities.

It's hugely important that we address marketplace accessibility issues, and the reason for that is there is 1 billion people, approximately a billion people, which is 15% of the world population, who are actually registered as disabled. So that's a huge part of the world.

It's actually the largest minority group that we have.

From a financial perspective, it's hugely important. The purple pound, which sort of shows the disposable income of persons with disabilities, that's estimated at £7 trillion across the world. And within the UK, it's estimated that the disposable income of persons with disabilities is £249 billion. So that's a huge amount of money that the marketplace and commercial settings could be tapping into.

But further from that, we're also seeing that a lot of people are going to be transitioning into disability due to COVID, due to the pandemic, and due to the fact that we're an aging demographic.

We're all temporarily able-bodied, that's what Dan Goodley, within Disability Studies says, because we all are going to suffer sort of bodily deterioration as we age.

So disability is something that marketplace and commercial settings really do need to think about and marketplace accessibility is a huge area that really is deserving of marketing and company attention.

So in terms of how retailers can improve marketplace accessibility for persons with impairment and their family members, there's lots of different ways that they can do it.

Quite often through sort of regulations such as the DDA or the ADA in America, we see that there are regulations where they have to have ramps, where they have to have elevators, where there has to be sort of disabled access.

But I think the biggest thing that companies really need to focus on is seeing the person behind the disability, knowing who to talk to and knowing how to interact with persons with disabilities.

I think that's the core thing, that we need to see the person behind the disability and work out how companies can really try and embrace the person over the disability.

Actually, my artwork, the name of my artwork, is Isolation.

This sculpture represents people with Phocomelia.

I also make a big box. The box represents the cosmetic marketplace, and the thing I want to tell people is the consumer experience that people with Phocomelia face when they enter a consumer Marketplace.

However, the sculpture is isolated from the big box, which is the marketplace, representing they may face some isolation when they enter this marketplace.

My artwork is called Umbrella of Understanding, and it embodies the notion that for autistic individuals, entering the supermarket can be like walking in the rain without an umbrella.

They lack this protective shield, and then can become doused in their own consumer discomfort.

So I wanted to encapsulate the autistic consumer experience and present solutions that the marketplace, particularly supermarkets, can enforce to protect them from these negative experiences that autistic consumers have.

My artwork is about individuals who suffer from autism, or are on the autism spectrum.

So the first drawing depicts a vase-like body individual in a grey font. Their body is shattering, sounds are coming all over, their brain is a mess, which basically wants to represent how in a crowded place, especially in a restaurant, for example, which is what I'm focusing on, individuals with autism can suffer noise hypersensitivity, which means that the noises just go in their brain and they get very overwhelmed, and they don't know what's happening and everything is overlapping, which is why I also have a noise bin which can be available in a YouTube video with the QR code.

The noise is exactly that; a lot of sounds overlapping that, for a neurotypical person, when they go into a restaurant, is just background noise, people talking, it doesn't bother them.

But for someone who suffers from ASD, it is quite a big issue.

My solution for this, which is the second and the third photo, is an accessibility box which contains fidget toys, colouring books, noise-cancelling headphones.

These items would be available on the menu and people can request it either for themselves or for a member of the party, and so individuals who suffer from noise hypersensitivity and are in the restaurant and they get overwhelmed, they can just request the box, get a sensory break, put their headphones on if they need to calm themselves down and be able to experience a meal out, or different servicescapes as well, shopping malls, cinemas, whatever, to be able to experience the same things as an neurotypical person without being overwhelmed.

My artwork actually is a song. I wrote this song for people who have vision impairment.

My inspiration began with a research which said that actually we already have lots of accessibility buttons or functions in the PC system, but when people who have the visual impairment use, the accessibility function they actually still have lots of challenges and the problems.

I thought that maybe we can find a way to solve this problem. Maybe we can link the AI system or input AI directly into the PC control system so that everybody can use their voice to control the PC system and do their daily jobs.

So, it depicts accessibility in galleries and museum spaces for the visually impaired.

I chose to present it in that way because I wanted to create a visual model for sighted people so they could see what it was about, but I also created a poem that you can listen to through headphones. So that essentially depicts what I would like to see in museum spaces to bring paintings to life and make them more accessible for people.

My artwork shows an interactive painting of Starry Sky, which inspired me in a museum because 'please do not touch' often exists in many art exhibitions, which causes a distance from artwork to consumers.

My artwork presents a painting and a transparent poem about starry sky.

This transparent poem was engraved in this canvas with Braille, which allows blind consumers to feel and understand this painting more realistically because the content of this poem describes the meaning of night sky and stars, which seems to whisper to the person who touches it.

I made some different shapes and colours of the stars which deliver the meaning of everyone is unique and shines, and the painting of my artwork has a black background, which means that everyone has the right to dream their own universal.

It tries to achieve a combination of accessibility and sensibility by using a series of touchable elements and empowers blind consumers.

My artwork is inspired by my grandmother.

My grandmother is a wheelchair user and she always finds it difficult to find clothes in her size and try on clothes in the market because the fitting rooms are usually too small.

So I want to try through the artwork; I want to see the beauty and accessibility, and the function in the clothes.