Venue Self-Assessment | iMED NeuroHealthcare Florida

Sensory environment

The light, sound, surfaces and air a person meets before anyone has spoken to them.

Sensory load is set by the building, and most buildings were specified without anyone asking what they sound like at four in the afternoon. It is also the layer that can be changed without changing the business.

1.Think about the brightest part of your public area on an ordinary weekday. What is the lighting like there?

One overhead system across the whole floor, on the same setting from opening to close.Bright overhead light nearly everywhere, with a few softer corners that happened by accident — a lamp somewhere, a bay the ceiling grid missed.Lighting varies across the floor on purpose, and there is at least one area a person can move to that is noticeably dimmer.Levels were specified area by area, dimmable where it matters, and someone on shift can lower them without calling maintenance.

2.During your busiest hour, what happens to sound in the public area?

Hard floors, hard ceilings. Announcements, music and conversation all land in the same space, and people raise their voices to be heard.It gets loud at peak, and the response so far has been to turn the music down when someone mentions it.Some treatment is in — soft flooring, panels, or a zone where music does not play — but announcements still carry everywhere at the same volume.Sound was treated as a design problem: absorption where the room needed it, music zoned, and announcement volume set per area rather than per building.

3.Beyond light and sound — surfaces, scent, air and screens. Where do those stand?

They have not come up. Fragrance, hand dryers, screen brightness and background scent are whatever the suppliers installed.One of them has been dealt with, usually the loudest, usually after a complaint. The rest have not.They were considered at the last refit, and nothing has checked them since.Someone walks a checklist: scent-free areas held, dryers and screens chosen with noise and glare in mind, and new products reviewed before they are installed.

Wayfinding and predictability

How much a person can know about what happens next, from before they arrive to the moment they reach what they came for.

Not knowing what comes next is its own load, on top of the room. A visit that can be rehearsed at home is a visit more people can decide to make.

4.A first-time visitor comes through the door and needs to reach the thing they came for. What do they have to work with?

Signs that made sense to the people who installed them. Most first-timers end up asking someone.Clear signs at the main decision points, all text, all using the words we use internally.Plain words and symbols, and the route is consistent — but it can only be learned by walking it.Plain words and symbols on a route that can also be seen before arrival: a photo walkthrough, a map, or a written description of the steps in order.

5.How much can a visitor find out about what a visit involves before they leave home?

They find out as they go. Nothing is published about the steps, the wait or the space itself.The practical facts are online — hours, location, what to bring — and nothing about noise, crowds, lines or the first five minutes.There is a page describing what to expect on arrival. It was written once and has not been revisited.What to expect is written for the visitor and kept current: the steps in order, what the space sounds like, what a person can ask for, and who to ask.

Queuing and waiting

What the venue asks of someone in the minutes before it serves them.

The security line at minute nine is a design decision, not bad luck. A visit abandoned in the line does not appear in any report.

6.When there is a line, what is available to a person who cannot stand in it?

One line for everyone. Leaving it means starting again.Staff will sometimes move someone forward if they ask and the shift is not slammed. It depends who is working.There is a documented alternative — a seat, a callback, another entrance — but a visitor has to already know it exists to use it.An alternative to standing in line is published, offered at the door, and holds a person's place whether or not they explain why they need it.

7.What does the waiting area itself ask of someone?

A row of seats in the brightest, busiest part of the floor, facing the crowd.There is seating, and it is where the floor plan had room for it. Nobody chose the spot.Some seating sits out of the main traffic, and there is a quieter end that people find on their own.Waiting was laid out on purpose: a low-stimulation section, a visible queue position or time estimate, and somewhere to stand rather than sit.

Somewhere to recover

Whether there is a place to bring sensory load down, and whether anyone can find it or run it.

When it becomes too much, the options are a room, a restroom, a parking lot, or leaving. A room is the structure most directly designed to change who is able to stay.

Staff readiness

What the people who meet the public know before the moment they need to know it.

A room nobody on shift knows how to open is not reachable. Preparation is what turns good intentions into the same response on a Sunday night as on a Tuesday morning.

11.What preparation have the people who meet the public had for welcoming neurodivergent visitors?

Nothing specific. They work from general customer service training and their own judgment.It came up once inside a longer accessibility session, where the material covered mobility and vision.A dedicated session was run, and the people on shift that day attended. Everyone hired since has not.It is part of onboarding and repeats on a schedule — recognizing sensory overload, communication, de-escalation — and it reaches contractors and agency staff too.

12.When someone is visibly in sensory overload, what does a staff member do?

Whatever seems right at the time, which usually means moving closer and asking more questions.They call a manager and wait. The manager improvises.Staff know to lower demands and give space, and the more experienced ones do it well.There is a named response the team has practiced: reduce input, offer the space, communicate simply, and give the person time without an audience.

Policy and follow-through

Whether any of this is written down, owned by a named person, and reviewed after something goes wrong.

Almost every venue has had one person who made it work. This dimension asks what remains the week after that person leaves.

13.Who owns this work at your venue?

Nobody in particular. It comes up when it comes up.It sits with whoever cares most about it, on top of a job that was already full.It is named in someone's remit, where it competes with everything else in that remit.A named owner, a budget line, and a meeting where it is reviewed — so it survives that person moving on.

14.After an incident, or after a visit that plainly went badly, what happens?

Not much. If no formal complaint arrives, there is nothing to act on.It is talked about on the shift and remembered by the people who were there.It is logged, and the log gets read the next time something similar happens.It is recorded, reviewed on a set cadence with the people who were on shift, and it changes something — the room, the route, the protocol or the training.

Fourteen questionsabout your building.

Answer for the building,not for anyone in it.

A self-assessment of a place