iPostthisweek

Overview Writing about universal design implies tracing back to the origin of the concept. In the 1970s, architect Ron Mace came up with the idea of universal design. Taking from his lived experience, as a wheelchair user, he understood the difficulties faced by people with disabilities as they try to move around buildings, roads, and public transport systems to mention but a few. He came up with the term “universal design” to characterize the importance of creating products and services that are beautiful, usable, and enjoyable by everyone, regardless of ability, age, or status in life. To continue his work, in 1997, The Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University expanded Mace’s vision of the importance of designing inclusive environments for everyone. Universal design aims to create inclusive and equal access to resources, technology, or spaces for all users. How inclusive is universal design? To answer this question, we must examine the overall effect of...

Overview Have you ever thought about any design strategy that lifts the lid? A well-thought-out design strategy can remove or eliminate accessibility barriers for everyone. This strategy can be described as a concurrence of fundamental notions of design, principles of design, the 10 commandments of design, and design elements. The question now becomes: how does a designer implement this strategy? To explore this, these contents will be examined: Fundamental Notions of Design Design Principles Nielsen’s 10 Commandments of Design Elements of Design Design is an interesting discipline that brings together imagination and reality. It imagines the interaction between an individual and the man-made environment as it interprets and considers factors, such as society, aesthetics, function, context, experience, and culture. Any design aims to create useful arrangements of elements that will benefit the user to achieve identified goals. Some fundamental notions of desi...

Introduction Situational disability is often described as a context-dependent limitation that affects someone’s ability to perform a task or activity. It is not a permanent disability nor is it chronic, nevertheless, it can be risky if the context does not warrant the person to access such a device or means of communication. Why do we bring in the concept of risk while describing situational disability? Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) defines risk as ‘one or more uncertain events that can either have a positive or negative impact on a business process.’ From the above definition of risk, the terms ‘uncertain’, ‘positive’, and ‘negative’ are important to understanding the adversarial implications of situational disabilities. Because we tend to associate risk with everything we do; hence there is a need for proper risk assessment of every activity. An uncertain event that has a positive outcome is regarded as an ‘opportunity’ while that with a ‘negative’...