Customer needs elicitation and disability simulation suit validation to benefit knowledge and methods for inclusive product design

Current product design methodologies are not conducive to creating inclusive products (products that meet the needs of persons with and without disabilities). In order to reduce the effort and expense involved in creating inclusive products, empathic design principles are applied to discover whether customer needs for people with disabilities can be reliably gathered from people without disabilities using disability simulation. This data collection methodology both increases the safety and ease by which customer needs can be gathered and gives designers an empathic design experience with the products they develop. A disability simulation suit is validated with respect to both its perceptual and physical effects. As part of larger research, this data will be used to make generalizations about the customer needs for inclusive products within the context of modular product design to create inclusive design guidelines. This paper presents the techniques involved in, and the data regarding the collection of customer needs on known product pairs. These product pairs perform the same function, but one is designed inclusively and one is not. Prior work on the identification of modules from customer need statements is extended to more closely address the design of inclusive products

A systematic review of pedagogical approaches that can effectively include children with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms with a particular focus on peer group interactive approaches

The broad background to this review is a long history of concepts of special pupils and special education, and a faith in special pedagogical approaches. The rise of inclusive schools and some important critiques of special pedagogy (e.g. Hart, 1996; Norwich and Lewis, 2001; Thomas and Loxley, 2001) have raised the profile of teaching approaches that ordinary teachers can and do use to include children with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms. Inclusive education itself is increasingly conceived as being about the quality of learning and participation that goes on in inclusive schools rather than simplistic matters of where children are place

Designers and manufacturers’ perspectives on inclusive/universal design

Inclusive design in the U.K. and its U.S. counterpart, universal design, present opportunities and challenges to industry. In order to encourage manufacturers and design companies to adopt more inclusive design practices, the research has been carried out to gain an understanding of why and how companies adopt inclusive design practices, what are the barriers when implementing them and what are the key strategies for facilitating inclusive/universal design in an industrial context. Based on interviews with a number of U.K. design consultancies and an investigation among manufacturers in the U.S., a comparison between U.K. consultant designers and U.S. consumer product manufacturers’ perspectives on inclusive/universal design was made. It was found that designers are reluctant to sacrifice the aesthetics of the brand to design for inclusion, but nevertheless would like to have practical tools to help them develop more inclusive solutions. For manufacturers, the key motivation for such practices is that of government regulation and legislation requiring the accessibility of products and services

Modern public finances as a proposal for an emerging country: The social approach in the fight against poverty in Mexico

In Mexico, the management of public resources has been questioned by the State, and mainly the results that the public administration at its three levels (federal, state and municipal), by the lack of transparency in the application and verification of public resources. The experience that gives us the operation of different emerging programs that focused on reducing social and economic inequality in the country, we can locate them as the first attempts in the search for a solution that is complex. Moving from the role of the benefactor and welfare state to the promoter of the regions and in the recognition of the focalization of priority attention areas, the path that has been taken is not only the beginning. Recognizing the public nature of public finances as a promoter of social development, we must understand it as the one assumed by the State through social, political and economic co-responsibility to solve poverty and marginalization of its own public policy orientation and vision of solution has been made since the eighties. From the above, we can point out some preliminary conclusions including the study of the indigenous language-speaking population with a high level of social exclusion in the methodology for the definition of multidimensional poverty in Mexico, will allow the allocation of public resources in the fight against poverty to be effective since it will make it possible to identify to the target population that is subject to social exclusion and marginalization. This invites us to a final reflection: What to do to address the just social demands of the indigenous population that is immersed in poverty, marginalization and exclusion? What to do so that they do not leave their communities, and if they have already done so, how to attend to the needs of family groups that are due to the expense of a remittance that may never arrive

Include 2011 : The role of inclusive design in making social innovation happen.

Include is the biennial conference held at the RCA and hosted by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design. The event is directed by Jo-Anne Bichard and attracts an international delegation

Qualitative doctoral research in educational settings: reflecting on meaningful encounters

In qualitative doctoral research the methodological approach, and the research design are extremely important when ensuring the rigorousness of the work. This is particularly significant for all researchers, and even more for doctoral students who are still developing their research and analytical skills. This paper aims to support doctoral students in their research journey by highlighting some of the tensions involved in conducting qualitative research by unpicking the experiences of two doctoral students to learn from the concerns, questions and reflections on the use of qualitative methodology in their doctoral research projects. The findings reveal challenges and insights with regards to reflection, educational research and the developing identity of being a researcher. The paper discusses these reflections to support and guide doctoral students as early career researchers when planning and conducting qualitative research in educational settings

Community outcome processes as a forum for community governance

Research for this report is part of a project on evaluating the quality of planning and governance under the Local Government Act 2002 (LGA). This is the first of two complementary reports aiming to develop and test a methodology for evaluating the LGA community outcomes processes and the related monitoring and reporting frameworks and apply it to selected councils. This report focuses on interrogation of community outcome processes facilitated by local authorities as a forum for community governance. Out of this study we have developed a generic framework for deliberative engagement

Learning Lessons with Knowledge Audits

{Excerpt} Knowledge from evaluations will not be used effectively if the specific organizational context, knowledge, and relationships of evaluation agencies, and the external environment they face, are not dealt with in an integrated and coherent manner. Knowledge management can shed light on this and related initiatives can catalyze and facilitate identification, creation, storage, sharing, and use of lessons. Most development agencies have committed to become learning organizations. But the use of evaluation for learning may be less important than that of other inputs, such as self evaluation and training, and evaluation results may only marginally support policy, strategy, and operational changes. In 2006, the Independent Evaluation Department in the Asian Development Bank determined to apply knowledge management to lesson learning. In 2007, it formulated a strategic framework to improve the organizational culture, management system, business processes, information technology solutions, community of practice, and external relations and networking for that. These Knowledge Solutions explain the strategic framework. They also describe the knowledge audit methodology developed to tie in with the department’s audiences. The online, questionnaire-based survey of perceptions conducted as a first exercise that year provided ready and multiple entry points against which the department can take measures to that intent, as well as a comprehensive baseline assessment against which to judge progress. Fundamentally, these Knowledge Solutions contend that evaluation agencies should move from “make-and-sell,” at the simplest level, to “sense-and-respond” in ways that are increasingly satisfying to stakeholders. Knowledge from evaluations will not be used effectively if the specific organizational context, knowledge, and relationships of evaluation agencies, and the external environment they face, are not dealt with in an integrated and coherent manner. Knowledge management can shed light on possible operating frameworks for this and knowledge management initiatives can be applied to catalyze and facilitate identification, creation, storage, sharing, and use of lessons. That would be knowledge utilization indeed