Design for All

La accesibilidad al medio fisico, la inginieria y el diseño (3-6.11.08)

Last week I have been attending the conference about accessibility design (La accesibilidad al medio fisico, la inginieria y el diseño). It was quite a challenge as the lectures were five hours long, four days in a row. And they were all held in Spanish.

The buzz phrase for all of the lectures was 'Diseño para todos' (design for everyone). It was said, that about 40% of the world's population has somehow reduced accessibility. Mainly due to their age (children, elderly), disabilities (handicapped, mental impaired) or temporary states (pregnancy, injuries). Many environments and products are not suitable for those people and create obstacles in their everyday lives, which is twice as unfair, as their lives are quite complicated anyway.
The current trend is to design with the consideration of users with reduced accessibility. 'Trend' is not the right word. I would say it is a necessity, that is strongly supported by European and Spanish legislation (every single lecture started with quoting the Spanish 'ley 55/2007 de 28 de diciembre' - I know it by heart now...).
I believe the matter is really important. And design is only one aspect of the problem. Looking at the bigger picture - it is a social challenge: to change the perception of the people, who are now seen as 'abnormal' and include them back in the society. And certainly it does not mean designing special objects/services for them, which would only exaggerate the difference, but creating universal things, that are equally attractive and accessible for all users.
Sounds so good and noble... and unfortunately very utopian.

Accessibility Design

To finish off the discussion about the EPS projects. I just wanted to say that I finally decided to be working on the accessibility project. I find it the most connected with users and giving great possibilities for development. I still need to wait for Pedro's approval, because what they are trying to do here, is to mix up people with different backgrounds.

The project is very open, first of all we have to choose one group of users with some accessibility limitations, mostly connected with their health, disabilities or age. I have some experience in designing for disabled children (the Sensations project we have done in the first year) and the Microsoft project we've done last semester in Dundee taught me a lot about designing for old people. So this time I wanted to focus on a different group of users. Again my reading of polish Polityka came useful. In the article from 16/08/08 "Wejście Smyka" I read about the new social trend concerning bringing up children. Obviously, the article was mostly taking about Polish society, but I believe it's generally true for most of Europeans. Parents take their children everywhere with them - to the restaurants, on the exotic holidays, on the board of planes. As they do not want to resign from their normal life, they combine parenthood with everyday activities. Which basically means that children are more present in a public space which is often not children - friendly. This creates problems not only for parents but also for other users. I'm sure many people experienced a flight with crying baby on board. Nightmare, isn't it? To be fair, the first thing I do while coming on board, I try to spot all the babies and take a sit as far as possible.
I think this is a design problem that gives wide possibilities - it can be a product, a service or some interior design solution.
It also quite interesting for me, as I may be a future user.