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

The Toilet Paper Newsletter

Newsletter that supports the research undertaken as part of the TACT3 Consortia, funded by the New Dynamics of Ageing programm

The Toilet Paper Research Newsletter

Latest issue of the Toilet paper research newsletter detailing progress on the TACT3 and RATs research project

Welcoming Workplace: Rapid Design Intervention to Determine the Office Environment Needs of Older Knowledge Workers

This book chapter details the context, methods, findings and implications of the Welcoming Workplace project (RCA, 2006–8), which was part of Phase 2 of the Designing for the 21stCentury Research Programme (AHRC-EPSRC), directed by Professor Tom Inns, University of Dundee. It describes (pp. 208–24) an interdisciplinary study to determine the office environment needs of older workers in the knowledge economy. Myerson was principal investigator on the project. The research uses a mix of architectural, anthropological and design techniques to give older workers a ‘voice’ in the workplace. At the heart of the study is a series of ‘rapid design interventions’ on sites in the UK, Japan and Australia to create temporary experiential work settings for testing and evaluation. It discusses how the research team worked with academic partners (Universities of Melbourne and Kyushu) to create these within the time and operational constraints imposed by large organisations. The study generated evidence-based design guidance on the needs of older workers and significantly advanced the idea of inclusive office design. As a result, Myerson was invited to join the Workplace Productivity Group of the British Council for Offices (BCO), the professional body responsible for writing the BCO’s Guide to Specification (2009). Findings were also submitted to the Department of Work and Pensions and incorporated into its major strategy paper on an ageing society (2009). In addition, Myerson was asked by the Royal Institute of British Architects to contribute to its Good Office Design publication (RIBA Publishing, 2009, ed. David Littlefield). Myerson led a masterclass at the British Library as part of the ‘WorkTech London 2008’ conference to launch the Welcoming Workplace study, and he accepted a number of international invitations to speak on the research: at the Office and Facility Conference Warsaw, Norwegian Design Council Oslo and Tongji University Shanghai (all 2010)

Digital Barriers: Making Technology Work for People

This paper was originally given as an oral presentation at the ‘3rd International Conference for Universal Design’, International Association for Universal Design, Hamamatsu, Japan (2010) and subsequently published. Peer reviewed by the conference’s International Scientific Committee, it looks at how the emerging techniques of design ethnography could be applied in a business context and qualitatively evaluates the benefits. It outlines the differences between inclusive design research conducted for digital devices/services and the large body of existing research on inclusive products, buildings and environments. It advances the view that technology companies are today in danger of repeating the same inclusive design mistakes made by kitchen and bathroom manufacturers 20 years ago, and calls for technology companies to develop new techniques to avoid this happening. The paper charts in detail the challenges and processes involved in transferring academic inclusive design research into the business arena, describing research conducted by Gheerawo and his co-authors on projects with research partners Samsung and BlackBerry. The paper helped define the ‘people and technology’ research theme in the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design’s Age & Ability Research Lab, which Gheerawo leads. It was also important, as part of evidence of the benefits of an inclusive technology approach, in persuading a number of companies (Sony, BT, Samsung) to undertake new studies with the Lab. Gheerawo used this pathfinder paper in further work, including an essay on digital communication for www.designingwithpeople.org (i-Design3 project EPSRC), membership of the steering committee for Age UK’s Engage accreditation for business, and lectures at ‘CitiesforAll’ conference, Helsinki (2012), ‘WorkTech’, London (2010), ‘Budapest Design Week’ (2011) and the ‘Business of Ageing’ conference, Dublin (2011). Gheerawo also co-wrote an article ‘Moving towards an encompassing universal design approach in ICT’ in The Journal of Usability Studies (2010), for which he was also a guest editor

Publicly Accessible Toilets: An Inclusive Design Guide

This guide has been developed from an inclusive design philosophy. It aims to incorporate the needs, aspirations and desires of people of all ages, abilities and ethnicities, who will become the future users of its design outcomes. ‘Publicly accessible toilets’ refers to all toilets that the public can access without having to buy anything. This includes those in shopping centres, parks and transport hubs, as well as the public toilets and community toilet schemes provided by the local authority

The Accessible Toilet Design Resource

This Accessible Toilet Design Resource has been produced from new primary research carried out within VivaCity 2020, a large university-based research consortium that is developing tools and resources to support the design of socially inclusive cities. The consortium is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). It was set up in 2003 and will complete its work in 2008. The Resource is concerned primarily with the design of the accessible toilet cubicle that should be provided for customer or public use wherever there is standard toilet provision. Though it may make reference to other types of toilet cubicles, urinals, automatic public conveniences (APCs) or grouped toilet provision, the location and design of these facilities are not addressed in great detail here. The location and design of accessible toilet facilities merits this independent, detailed scrutiny because it is essential to provide these facilities and to design them correctly, so that disabled people can participate on equal terms to able-bodied people in every aspect of city life

The Designer as Ethnographer: Practical Projects from Industry

Bichard and Gheerawo (RCA) were invited to contribute this chapter by the book’s editor, Professor Alison Clarke (University of Applied Arts, Vienna), who brought together ‘key thinkers and practitioners involved in making and theorizing our contemporary material and immaterial world’ (p.9). The book charts how designers have begun to use social research as part of their practice, whilst also presenting an anthropological perspective of both the consumption of design, and those involved in the design process (Bichard and Gheerawo). Design anthropology is an emerging discipline and this edited volume was the first to bring together designers, design researchers and anthropologists. The chapter describes ethnographic design research and highlights the temporal tensions between respective practices in both design and anthropology. Following Rees’s (2008) suggestion that the fieldwork methodology of anthropology could learn much from design, Bichard and Gheerawo argue that design(ers) could benefit from the reflexive perspective of anthropology. The use of ethnography in design research is especially pertinent in Bichard’s work with partners from disability and ageing communities. The flexibility of the ethnographic approach has afforded collaborative design research processes, bridging the creative experience of the designer/researcher and the life experience of the partner. A review of the edited volume in Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society (2013) described Bichard and Gheerawo’s chapter as ‘one of the best offerings of the book’. Bichard presented adapted versions of the chapter in her series of guest lectures on design anthropology at the Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London (2010 and 2011)

Inclusive Design of 'Away from Home' Toilets

This book chapter was the culmination of Bichard’s work for the EPSRC-funded VivaCity2020 research consortium (http://www.vivacity2020.co.uk, 2003-2008). The edited book focused on design for sustainability of the 24-hour city from the multidisciplinary perspective of the VivaCity2020 project (physical and social sciences, engineering and design). Considering key issues of sustainability and quality of life, it highlights innovative decision- making in urban planning and environmental design. Bichard and Hanson’s (UCL) chapter presents inclusive design research undertaken by Bichard for the project on sustainable city toilet provision, and includes a design guidance review and results from an audit tool applied to 101 cubicles around England. The audit found that no cubicle had fully followed design recommendations. Interviews with 250 people identified challenges to toilet access within the city and informed the design of 42 ‘personas’ as ‘decision-making tools’ for architects, designers and planners. Design templates for the layout of cubicles for a range of abilities, including the need for an adult changing bench, were also presented. Bichard’s work on the VivaCity2020 project also included a design guide, The Accessible Toilet Resource (1147 Downloads from 18 countries), a further book chapter, ‘Designing accessible technology’, four journal articles (for Senses & Society and Access by Design, the journal of the Centre of Accessible Environments), six conference papers, two conference posters and two book reviews (for Social & Cultural Geography and Gender, Place & Culture). Bichard received funding for further work as co-investigator on Tackling Ageing Continence through Theory, Tools & Technology (TACT3) funded by the cross-Council ‘New Dynamics of Ageing Programme’ (£1.3m, 2008–12), and as principal investigator of Robust Accessible Toilets (RATs), funded by the cross-Research Council Connected Communities Programme (£12,000, 2011). In addition, she was guest editor of a special issue of The Design Journal on inclusive design (2013)

ExcLOOsion: How Design is Failing Sanitary Provision

Diversity and Design explores how design - whether of products, buildings, landscapes, cities, media, or systems - affects diverse members of society. Fifteen case studies in television, marketing, product design, architecture, film, video games, and more, illustrate the profound, though often hidden, consequences design decisions and processes have on the total human experience. The book not only investigates how gender, race, class, age, disability, and other factors influence the ways designers think, but also emphasizes the importance of understanding increasingly diverse cultures and, thus, averting design that leads to discrimination, isolation, and segregation