About LEXI

13 August 2012

Channel 4 introduces ‘Lexi Decoder'  (LEXI) a revolutionary new graphical system which aims to aid the viewing experience of this summer's Paralympic Games by debunking the often confusing classifications that govern Paralympic sport.

Research revealed that some viewers are confused by the disability classifications in Paralympic sports but would be more engaged with the Paralympics Games if they had a better understanding of why athletes with different disabilities compete against each other.

This is where LEXI can help: 

The easy to follow system is made up of colour coded graphics that illustrate disability types within sporting classes. Different types and levels of impairments are illustrated using of a colour palette: green denoting no impairment, yellow - mild, orange - moderate and red - severe.

Everything is designed to be intuitive so in addition, missing limbs are shown as just that -a missing limb, dwarfism is illustrated by a smaller figure and learning disability is illustrated by applying the colour palette to the head.

The graphics will be used ahead of Paralympic races to indicate which disabilities are included in each specific classification sector, for example, a T44 race in the track in athletics or S6 in swimming.

The LEXI concept was originally created by Paralympic gold medal winning athlete, Giles Long and has the backing of the International Paralympics Committee, the British Paralympic Association and Seb Coe, Chair of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.  

LEXI will be applied to coverage of eight of the 20 Paralympic sports:

• Swimming
• Athletics
• Wheelchair Rugby
• Wheelchair Basketball
• Sitting Volleyball
• Seven-a-side football
• Cycling
• Table Tennis

 

LEXI joins Channel 4's long-standing heritage in ground-breaking and innovative ideas, dating back to the introduction of Hawk-Eye and Snickometer technology in cricket.