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“Universal design provides a blueprint for maximum inclusion of all people” [7].
This statement is now nearly 20 years old. The present collection of papers from the 3rd International Conference on Universal Design (UD 2016) is testament to the fact that Universal Design is now benefitting from a climate that is more knowledgeable about, and possibly more accommodating of, individual differences between people. However, there are still many open issues, and much to be learnt from exchanging experiences between all stakeholders interested in Universal Design, be they policy makers, practitioners or researchers. This is due to the many changes in society, the environment and technology that have occurred in the last two decades.
In this collection of papers from the conference, we cover many areas of theory and practice of Universal Design, with applications from the built environment and tangible products, to communication, services, and system design issues. There are also papers about advocating and teaching Universal Design, debates about policy, and about codes, regulations and standards. We hope the collection is a useful way for policy makers, practitioners and researchers interested in these different strands of work to learn and exchange ideas and best practices, and to break down the “silos” that inevitably emerge in any group attempting to address a topic of mutual interest from many perspectives.
In gathering together these different strands, we also need to reflect on the current manifestations of Universal Design, and what implications there are for the years to come. We need to look back to where we came from, and to look forward to the future shaping of Universal Design.
With the benefit of nearly 20 years since the publication of the Principles of Universal Design
Principles of Universal Design Version 2.0 4/1/97. © Copyright 1997 NC State University, The Center for Universal Design, an initiative of the College of Design. Compiled by advocates of universal design, listed in alphabetical order: Bettye Rose Connell, Mike Jones, Ron Mace, Jim Mueller, Abir Mullick, Elaine Ostroff, Jon Sanford, Ed Steinfeld, Molly Story, & Gregg Vanderheiden https://www.ncsu.edu/project/design-projects/sites/cud/content/principles/principles.html. https://www.ncsu.edu/ncsu/design/cud/about_ud/about_ud.htm.
As with all concise definitions, it has been necessary to emphasise and add to this statement, for instance:
• Universal Design is really about including all people and not a euphemism for “design for those with a disability”. It is about products, services, and environments being usable, to the greatest extent possible, by everyone, regardless of their age, ability, cultural background or status in life [1].
• The phrase “to the greatest extent possible” was added to counter criticism that Universal Design was a utopian ideal, and to underscore that Universal Design is a practical as well as conceptual approach.
• The focus of Universal Design is on mainstream products, services, and environments and not on adaptations or specialist products, services, and environments.
• Universal Design emphasises the need to design from the outset for the widest possible range of users, rather than try to make modifications later on, whether during the design process or after release.
• Products, services, and environments should also be aesthetically pleasing as well as non-discriminatory and non-stigmatising.
Most of these elaborations are enshrined in the Principles of Universal Design. This is a set of seven principles that were developed to lay out guidance for the design of environments, products and communications, to evaluate existing designs, and to educate both designers and consumers about the characteristics of more usable products and environments.
In addition, other terms have come into being, responding to the need to explain different aspects of the Universal Design spectrum. In 1998, at the “Designing for the 21st Century Conference” Ron Mace's presentation differentiated between the meanings and practices associated with the terms “Barrier-Free Design”, “Assistive Technology” and “Universal Design” [2].
At the turn of the millennium, “Design for All” was the term adopted by the European Commission which focused on ensuring that environments, products, services and interfaces of the Information Society Technologies (ISTs) work for people of all ages and abilities in different situations and under various circumstances [6, 8]. It spelt out the “adaptation or specialized design” with a three-part strategy:
• Design of IST products, services and applications which are demonstrably suitable for most of the potential users without any modifications.
• Design of products which are easily adaptable to different users (e.g. by incorporating adaptable or customisable user interfaces).
• Design of products which have standardised interfaces, capable of being accessed by specialised user interaction devices [6].
Alongside setting out this strategy, the definition of Design for All made a conscious effort to make the concept more widely acceptable by explaining how Design for All could benefit not just consumers of ISTs, but also producers, and give wider social and economic benefit. Amongst other things, adopting a Design for All approach would help deal proactively with the demographic trend of the aging population, and benefit businesses with increased sales of innovatively designed products that everyone could use. In short, Design for All advocated a policy of mutual benefit, where the “for all” descriptor included more than the user population.
However, as with the term Universal Design, Design for All was misinterpreted, and accused firstly of the impractical aim of trying to accommodate everyone without exception. Secondly, there was a confusion that Design for All in its insistence on minimizing adaptation, was advocating a “one design fits all” stance, evidenced by the question posed at the time “Could you imagine a pair of shoes being designed in such way that everybody would want to wear them?”
A preferred term to Design for All in the English-speaking European literature is “Inclusive Design”. Coined by Roger Coleman in 1994
RICA (Research Institute for Consumer Affairs) (2016) Inclusive Design: manufacturing, design, and retail expert views available from rica.org.uk.
Interestingly, in 2005, the British Standards Institute described Inclusive Design in its “Guide to Managing Inclusive Design” as “comprehensive, integrated design which encompasses all aspects of a product used by consumers of diverse age and capability in a wide range of contexts”
BS 7000-6:2005, Design management systems. Managing inclusive design. Guide. Inclusive Design Toolkit, What is Inclusive Design, Section: Comparison with Universal Design, http://www.inclusivedesigntoolkit.com/betterdesign2/whatis/whatis.html#p3b. BS 7000-6, 2005. Design Management Systems: Managing Inclusive Design, BSi, London, UK. http://shop.bsigroup.com/en/ProductDetail/?pid=000000000030142267.
With the term Inclusive Design, the notion that the design is of mutual benefit to all stakeholders, as in Design for All, was lost. It is perhaps telling that the Scandinavian countries with their tradition of collaborative and participatory design are the main supporters of the term Design for All as the most appropriate one to use [6]. It is a term no longer in such evident use by the European Commission. However, it is notable that in the proposal for what is being more commonly referred to as the European Accessibility Act, there is a somewhat awkward paraphrase “Accessibility following a ‘design for all’ approach”
Section 1.2, European Commission (2015) COM(2015) 615 final2015/0278 (COD) Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States as regards the accessibility requirements for products and services.
Of course, part of this alignment of terms and definitions is possibly a result of a move to try to consolidate terminology, driven by the signing of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disability (UNCPRD) that uses the term Universal Design. European organisations such as the European Disability Forum (EDF) advocate using the term Universal Design instead of Design for All in order to be aligned to the UNCRPD. In fact, the European Accessibility Act specifically notes in its definitions section that “universal design” is also referred to as “design for all”
Art. 2, Para. 2, European Commission (2015) COM(2015) 615 final2015/0278 (COD) Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States as regards the accessibility requirements for products and services.
Other terms that are used in this area include “Accessibility” which is often connected to developing regulations, codes, standards, policies and procedures to provide societal inclusion to people with disabilities. This approach implies that accessibility is a property or a quality that can be incorporated into products, environments, services, and systems. Thus we speak of “accessible hotel rooms” and “accessible formats” for documents. A major characteristic of this approach is that products, environments, services, and systems can be independently used by people with a variety of abilities. “Accessible Design” is another term that refers to a design process in which the needs of people with disabilities are specifically considered. For instance, two standards from the International Standards Organization (ISO) have recently been developed with this term. The first specifies a method of calculation that can be applied to the design of visual signs and displays, so that they are clearly visible to older as well as younger people
ISO 24502:2010, Ergonomics – Accessible design – Specification of age-related luminance contrast for coloured light. ISO 24501:2010, Ergonomics – Accessible design – Sound pressure levels of auditory signals for consumer products.
A further common use of the term accessibility is in “Web Accessibility”. The use of the Web by people with disabilities has received attention since early in its development. For example, Paciello [3, 4, 5] discussed how the Web can be made accessible to users with a range of different disabilities. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the international organisation that develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web, has always taken a very strong stance in promoting the Web as an accessible technology. It established the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) in 1997 to work on this topic and develop supporting guidelines. The WAI gives a definition of Web Accessibility as:
“…people with disabilities can use the Web. More specifically, Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web. Web accessibility also benefits others, including older people with changing abilities due to aging”.
An interesting point to note in this definition is that contributing to the Web is particularly highlighted. Thus the idea that people with disabilities should not only be consumers of information from the Web, but also be able to create information for others, an aspect often forgotten by developers.
Two further terms related to accessibility and Universal Design are eAccessibility and eInclusion, now Digital Inclusion. eAccessibility refers to the ease of use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as the web. It refers to a wide spectrum of ICTs used in different application areas, such as elearning, ehealth, and ecommerce. By contrast, eInclusion can be said to be more of a policy based approach. It was defined by the European Commission as “inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the use of ICT to achieve wider inclusion objectives and policies aiming at both reducing gaps in ICT usage and promoting the use of ICT to overcome exclusion”
Riga Ministerial Declaration (11 June 2006) on eInclusion.
So what of the future for Universal Design? Some areas requiring more research and thought from the Universal Design community include the issues of people living with allergies, chronic diseases and mental health conditions, topics we are pleased to say are already in evidence in these proceedings. Most of all, we circle around to the need to involve and understand people in all their diversity and complexity. They have unique insights and experiences.
There is still a great need to promote Universal Design and related principles in mainstream design and development areas. It remains the case that most designers and developers fail to understand the need for Universal Design and lack the skills to implement such designs. There is also a great need to facilitate designers and developers working together with people with diverse abilities, ages, cultural backgrounds and status in life, so that collaborative and participatory design can take place. Often there is an interest from designers and developers to work with a variety of people, but no means for this to happen. We also need further methods for harnessing participation from the whole range of people, bringing them into design and development processes. Increasingly, we see user participation and co-design as key terms in Universal Design.
A number of papers in these proceedings already indicate that the Universal Design community is sensitive to these needs. We hope you will find this collection inspiring and helpful as we continue to work in this highly challenging and increasingly pervasive area.
Helen Petrie
Jenny Darzentas
Tanja Walsh
David Swallow
Leonardo Sandoval
Andrew Lewis
Christopher Power
Editors of the Proceedings
References
[1] Abascal, J., Barbosa, S.D.J., Nicolle, C. and Zaphiris, P. 2016. Rethinking universal accessibility: a broader approach considering the digital gap. Universal Access to the Information Society, 15(2), 179–182.
[2] Mace, R. 1998. A Perspective on Universal Design Designing for the 21st Century: An International Conference on Universal Design (speech excerpt prepared by Reagan, J. available at https://www.ncsu.edu/ncsu/design/cud/about_us/usronmacespeech.htm.
[3] Paciello, M.G. 1996a. Making the World Wide Web Accessible for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Florida Libraries, 39(5).
[4] Paciello, M.G. 1996b. Making the Web Accessible for the Deaf, Hearing, and Mobility Impaired. Florida Libraries, 39, 83–91.
[5] Paciello, M.G. 1996c. The Web and People with Disabilities: Cutting Edge Developments. Florida Libraries, 39.
[6] Persson, H., Åhman, H., Yngling, A. and Gulliksen, J. 2015. Universal design, inclusive design, accessible design, design for all: different concepts – one goal? On the concept of accessibility – historical, methodological and philosophical aspects. Universal Access to the Information Society, 14, 505–526.
[7] Story, M., Mace, R. and Mueller, J. 1998. The Universal Design File: Designing for People of All Ages and Abilities. Raleigh, NC: Center for Universal Design, NC State University.
[8] Stephanidis, C. 2001. User interfaces for all: new perspectives into human-computer interaction. In Stephanidis, C. (Ed.), User Interfaces All Concepts Methods Tools, Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates.
