David Hobbs, a Senior Rehabilitation Engineer from Novita Children's Services came to speak to us this week about Universal Design. According to him, Universal Design is "a process that yields products which are usable by, and useful to, the widest possible range of people". This means that the product or service is something that can be used and experienced by people of all ages and abilities, to the greatest extent possible, without adaptation.
He spoke about how Universal Design is not only useful to the elderly or disabled, and how we are all disabled, if only momentarily, in our day to day lives. For example, the same disadvantages of having a broken arm can apply to somebody with armful of shopping.
The principles of Universal Design were explained to us, along with many an example of something incorperating good universal design, such as a set of taps and faucet, with specially designed taps which only need to be nudged to the left or the right to turn them on or off, or an elevator control panel with the buttons in a horizontal row so as to not restrict those who are in a wheelchair or those who are vertically challenged from reaching the top floors.
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