Heavy Duty Handsets – Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge

Winner of multiple wildlife and environmental awards, Valle de Oro Nature Wildlife Reserve in New Mexico is part of a larger National Wildlife Refuge System – a series of lands and waters owned and managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Valle de Oro offers a chance for people living in urban settings to learn and understand the importance of conservation.

Ideum were commissioned to complete a new exhibition at Valle de Oro with a specific focus on offering some of the best interpretive accessibility for sight impaired visitors.

Through consultation with The New Mexico Commission for the Blind Ideum reached several conclusions on how to do this, which included using a single consistent voice for audio, avoiding ambient sound where possible, and utilising Braille only in specific circumstances as not everyone with vision impairment can use it.

It was determined that having several loudspeakers within the exhibition would only increase ambient noise issues, however using isolated audio would avoid this. With that in mind the obvious answer was to opt for some kind of headphone. This is where our Heavy Duty Handset comes in, providing clear audio via the high quality speaker and all built into a impact-resistant casing perfect for any public space.

Several HDH’s were used throughout the exhibition providing various kinds of audio interpretation to visitors in a clear and easy to access manner. There are also audio out points available for visitors to use their own headphones if they wish. Coupled with the Teardrop mounting plate the HDH provide a secure and tidy installation point ensuring longevity in use.