Innovating with People: Creating an Inclusive Design Publication and Toolkit

Abstract

Inclusive Design (ID) has not been widely seen as a mainstream tool for innovation, or as a strategy for business and the public sector. Methods, case studies and frameworks exist, but were not widely accessible outside of academic publication. The authors of this paper, from Norway and the UK, recognised a need for a definitive publication on ID to present the concept, benefits and tools. Their collective forty years of experience lead to the publishing of ‘Innovating with People—The Business of Inclusive Design’ in 2010. A second edition followed in 2019, ‘Innovating with People—Inclusive Design and Architecture’. These brought together experts and practitioners to create a practical guide from primary and secondary research, drawing on personal experience and insights. The content and processes inside the publications are discussed, describing the outputs and assessing effectiveness. The paper outlines content, structure, and the intention behind the work of the authors, drawing on their complementary experience from Business and Design. The paper describes a multi‐author, multi‐contributor and multi‐disciplinary book about ID outlining eight ID activities for Design and nine for Architecture. The book has been distributed to more than 45 countries and is used by academia, consultancy, government and industry.

What are the factors that influence the adaptive market? An empirical study with wheelchair users in Hong Kong

“…Exposure to the adaptive clothing, the shopping experience, the consumers' ability to afford the items and the participation of the fashion companies were found to be essential for mutually beneficial relationships between healthcare researchers and the fashion industry. This finding is in accordance with the Norwegian Design Council's proposition that business development of adaptive products involves a user-centred design process, proper use of technology and a creative strategy to increase market potential (Eikhaug, 2010). The success of a business depends on both the consumers and the practitioners.…”

Understanding Person-Environment Relationships as Criteria to Support the Operationalization of Universal Designing

“…UD is a means of considering all the P-E relationship criteria and human differences. To prevent overlooking genuine and diverse need, human-centeredness and the involvement of individuals at every stage in the design process is at the core of UD [4]. There is a need to develop theoretical awareness and conceptual clarity regarding P-E relationship criteria and consider them in universal designing to support the operationalization of UD.…”

“…Understanding and addressing usability requires more than focusing on functional needs and behavior. The fact that individual factors represent a substantial source of variation such as hopes, aspirations, and dreams [4] means that many individual factors in addition to functional capacity must be incorporated into usability analyses. Factors related to the environment include environment type, properties, characteristics, architecture, scale, technical, social environment, culture, economy, politics, and use context [13].…”

“…In other words, universal designing [2] is a process of embedding cues and choices for as many people as possible into products such as environments, goods, objects, programs, and services (further referred to as environments) to improve human performance, health and wellbeing, independence, and social participation [3]. UD is also known as Inclusive Design and Design for All -terms with some differences regarding historical, professional, and political inception, but, showing large similarities regarding humancenteredness, ideology, praxis, and implementation [4,5].…”

“…In general, design has increasingly moved toward answering human needs [4]. Considering P-E relationships in design processes represents a step away from the perspective that quality exists as properties in the environments themselves and closer to an approach in which value is added when individuals interact with and live in environments.…”