“…truly inclusive policy requires an acknowledgment that disability is an expected part of human life, not a tragedy or “special” consideration. Designing an accessible America—still a vision left unfulfilled—requires embedding design in systems that can support rights and equality in ways that go beyond the material.”

– Bess Williamson, Art Institute of Chicago^[1]

Universal design is a design approach that aims to make products, services, and environments accessible to the greatest extent possible to a wide range of users, including those with disabilities.  As a general maxim, if you build a community around the needs of people with disabilities (sometimes this is called building to ‘extremes’), it is bound to help everyone, including the able-bodied.^[2]  According to the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design, “Universal Design is the design and composition of an environment so that it can be accessed, understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people regardless of their age, size, ability or disability.”^[3] Universal design (UD) can apply to fine scale design, such as tools and computerized applications, through industrial design and architecture, all the way up to the scale of urban design. UD removes the stigma attached to one particular group by adhering to principles like equity, flexibility, low physical effort and simple and intuitive use. It also recognizes that all people have ‘situational disabilities’ (such as when our hands are full of grocery bags as we exit a store). For example, the use of electric toothbrushes, dark screen mode, push buttons, curb cuts, wide entrances, automatic doors, elevators, and ramps that were initially designed to enhance functionality or accessibility for people with disabilities, are features that everyone uses and prefers.  A practical application of the UD ethos, for example, is that automatic sliding doors should be the entrance of choice whenever there is a double-door commercial or institutional setting.^[4]

Seven university design principles were first published by a team of architects, designers, and activists and North Carolina State University in 1997.  These principles – equitable use, flexibility in use, simple and intuitive use, perceptible information, tolerance for error, low physical effort, size and space for approach and use – are included in more detail in Appendix E: The 7 Principles of Universal Design. Many of these principles can apply beyond the physical design realm.  Universal instructional design, for example, is a concept expanded upon elsewhere in this scan. Universal health care, or universal basic income are forms of universal design related to well-being or socio-economic status, respectively.

The Curb Cut Effect

Universal design was an idea first disseminated by US architect Ron Mace in the mid-1970s, who came up with curb cut designs around the North Carolina legislature.^[5]  The “curb cut effect” refers to the idea that accessibility improvements for people with disabilities can have unintended positive impacts for a wider range of individuals, including those without disabilities. The term “curb cut” refers to the cuts or ramps in curbs that make it easier for people with mobility impairments, such as those using wheelchairs, to navigate sidewalks and other public spaces. The curb cut effect suggests that when accessibility features, such as curb cuts, are designed and implemented, they can have benefits beyond the intended user group. For example, curb cuts make it easier for everyone, including people with strollers, delivery workers, and bicyclists, to navigate sidewalks and public spaces. In the same way, accessibility improvements in technology, such as closed captioning or audio description software, can benefit a wider range of individuals, including those who are not deaf or hearing-impaired.  The curb cut effect can be seen in how many mainstream technologies started their life as assistive inventions. Alexander Graham Bell first developed the telephone as a speech aid for deaf people, Nokia introduced texting as an alternative for audio communication, and voice-activated chatbots like Siri and Alexa use technology first developed for assistive purposes.^[6]

Post-Normate Design

Other early precursors to universal design include the introduction of adjustable seats for pilots in aviation (later copied in automobile design), along with adjustable foot pedals, helmets, seat belts and so on, which was a radical departure from designing to an average archetypal ‘norm’.^[7]  Rosemary Garland-Thomson, in her book, Extraordinary Bodies, used a similar term – “normate” – which is not just able-bodied, but also male, white, and cisgendered.^[8] Urban designer Hannah Silver notes that “Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, Le Corbusier’s Modulor Man, and a long line of subsequent dimensioned human silhouettes make up this normalized architectural occupant.”^[9]  Others have noted how this “myth of average” impedes universal design applied to learning (also known as universal instructional design).^[10]  It also leads to the design of cities for adult middle-class drivers – the average user – rather than for seniors, children, youth, those living in poverty, and people with disabilities.

8 to 80 and 80/20

The acceleration of universal design as a concept did not really pick up steam until well into the 21st century, reaching a new milestone in the fall of 2016, when the White House held a Design for All Showcase, a fashion show and symposium highlighting “inclusive design, assistive technology, and prosthetics”, the show positioned disability as a source for innovation in design.^[11]  The concept of “8 to 80” is a sub-variant of universal design that aims to create products, buildings, and cities that work for everyone from age 8 to 80. The iPad is an example of an “8 to 80” design. Voice command internet searches, voice-to-text applications, and voice-controlled personal assistants, for example, while designed for the general consumer marketplace, have obvious appeal to a generation who may have visual difficulties or arthritis (or otherwise find it challenging to type commands). And what is important to understand is that these technologies are not designed and marketed to those with disabilities only. Livio AI, developed by Minnesota-based Starkey Hearing Technologies, is an interesting example of universal design: It is a hearing aid with additional features that non-hearing-impaired individuals find desirable (like music streaming, GPS, and other features).  Such utility, along with its sleek design, removes the otherwise strong stigma attached to a hearing aid as a classic marker of aging.^[12]

Universal design is sometimes maligned as “one size fits all” or “lowest common denominator” design, falling into an (albeit more enlightened variant of) Taylorist design; design decisions reliant on scientific and engineering insight.  Some do appear to interpret universal design to be not strictly-speaking universal, but instead conforming more to a Pareto principle (in occupational health and safety policy, for example, a normal distribution curve, or 80/20 ratio, assumes that if you design to address 20 percent of all possible barriers then 80 per cent of people will disabilities will be accommodated).^[13] Instead of limiting to a lowest common denominator, many proponents and practitioners of universal design today would aspire to be closer to the concept of both the “highest common factor” and engagement with the end user, maximizing the likelihood of access for the greatest number of people.^[14]

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