Blue Badge Style Reaches Out to Europe & the Less-Sighted

First mobile app for stylish, less-able people adds new cities and text-to-speech

London, 23 October 2012, Blue Badge Style (www.bluebadgestyle.com), the first app and website guide for a less able, stylish lifestyle, has added venues in new UK and Europe cities, along with text-to-speech and a magnification button for the partially-sighted. iPhone, iPad and Android users across the continent can now download and write reviews for the app.

The Blue Badge Style app works as a” Michelin-like” star system for the less able. It identifies cool venues near your location and uses a bespoke three tick rating system to grade it out of 5 for each category: 1.Access, 2.Facilities and 3.Style, so that users know exactly what to expect from each venue. You can then easily see the best places near you, read a review, check the Blue Badge Style rating and get directions on how to get there.

Fashion Designer and style icon, Simon Carter explains, “This app can quickly locate stylish restaurants and bars that are nearby. It also warns you if there is a problem with disabled access or facilities. I’m able bodied and I’m going to use it!”.

Founder Fiona Jarvis explains “I haven’t lost my sense of style, just because I’m lacking in mobility. But I do want to know what to expect before I arrive at a venue. The Blue Badge Style app means that anyone less able and equally importantly, their friends, don’t have to be surprised or embarrassed by a lack of accessibility or facilities at a cool venue. For example, you might decide to go to a cool bar with only 1.5 ticks, but because its disabled toilet facilities are lacking, you might not stay very long!”

Fiona Jarvis believes that style and disability are not mutually exclusive. The expansion of Blue Badge Style from London to other cities, and to include other disabilities, highlights Fiona’s plan to create a global community of like-minded people and encourage them to rate their favourite restaurants, bars, shops, cafes, theatres etc. on Blue Badge Style. She explains, “Style is the overriding premise of the website and app, along with a positive outlook. Disability need not stop you from enjoying the good things in life!”.

The Blue Badge Style app has been jointly developed by Stuxbot and UCL Advances, who offered to help at a recent UCL Mobile Academy course, believing the idea to be one which would improve the lives of people with disabilities.

 

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