Dislocation of the fibular head in an unusual sports injury: a case report

© 2008 Ahmad and Case; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

A task based 'design for all' support tool

The ‘Design for All’ philosophy promotes the development of products that meet the requirements of a broader section of the population, including those who are older or disabled, to minimise the need for bespoke designs and individual customisations. Such an approach begins to meet the needs of a population containing an ever increasing proportion of these excluded groups, whilst providing opportunities to manufacturers to maximise the available market for any given product. Most design activity embodies some form of task analysis that involves identifying users and the tasks they perform. Computer based human modelling systems are becoming increasingly important in this task analysis role combined with the established ergonomics technique of fitting trials, in which a product or environment is evaluated through trials using a carefully selected user group. This research addresses the lack of existing data necessary for the accurate representation of human form and capability in the older and disabled populations for use in these modelling systems. A small-scale survey is being undertaken to collect this important information. In addition, existing modelling systems in this area rely on expert ergonomics knowledge in performing task based analysis, which in addition can be a time consuming and repetitive task. Methods are being developed to streamline this process and to place the emphasis on good design and ergonomics principles as opposed to ‘driving’ the system. These methods involve the development of a simplified process for computer based task analysis and a means of determining the percentage accommodated by any given design. Further research will eventually focus on extending the data collection, refining the task model and look at a means of suggesting design solutions in response to the analysis results

A task based 'design for all' support tool

The ‘Design for All’ philosophy promotes the development of products that meet the requirements of a broader section of the population, including those who are older or disabled, to minimise the need for bespoke designs and individual customisations. Such an approach begins to meet the needs of a population containing an ever increasing proportion of these excluded groups, whilst providing opportunities to manufacturers to maximise the available market for any given product. Most design activity embodies some form of task analysis that involves identifying users and the tasks they perform. Computer based human modelling systems are becoming increasingly important in this task analysis role combined with the established ergonomics technique of fitting trials, in which a product or environment is evaluated through trials using a carefully selected user group. This research addresses the lack of existing data necessary for the accurate representation of human form and capability in the older and disabled populations for use in these modelling systems. A small-scale survey is being undertaken to collect this important information. In addition, existing modelling systems in this area rely on expert ergonomics knowledge in performing task based analysis, which in addition can be a time consuming and repetitive task. Methods are being developed to streamline this process and to place the emphasis on good design and ergonomics principles as opposed to ‘driving’ the system. These methods involve the development of a simplified process for computer based task analysis and a means of determining the percentage accommodated by any given design. Further research will eventually focus on extending the data collection, refining the task model and look at a means of suggesting design solutions in response to the analysis results

A survey of the design needs of older and disabled people

The challenges facing design teams with respect to older and physically disabled people are only now beginning to be addressed, largely due to the fact that the population is ageing. In order for designers to consider the needs of these people and design inclusively, it is necessary to understand the requirements and preferences that are experienced in Activities of Daily Life (ADL), as people interact with everyday products, environments, and systems. This paper presents the results of a survey into the needs of older and disabled people today. The results show that, despite advances in technology and design, participants still have difficulty performing the everyday activities that most of us take for granted

Virtual task analysis in 'design for all'

Design for All’ or ‘Inclusive Design’ is an approach to product, environment or service design that aims to maximise the applicability of a particular design. However, the concept is not to tailor designs in a bespoke fashion, but rather to provide a single solution that accommodates the needs of all users including those who are older or disabled. In order to educate and support the designer in their endeavours to ‘Design for All’ a computer aided design and analysis tool has been developed. The tool, known as HADRIAN, has been developed to meet two key areas of deficiency in existing approaches. HADRIAN provides improved data for the designer with a sample database of 100 individuals across a broad spectrum of ages and abilities. HADRIAN also provides a means of using this data for ergonomics evaluations through a task analysis tool. Working in combination with the existing human modelling system SAMMIE the system allows the designer to assess their designs against the population in the database to determine the percentage who are effectively ‘designed out’

The development of a computer design tool for virtual user trials: data collection methods

There are clear gains to be made by integrating the user within the design process. User trials are a commonly used technique in ergonomics evaluation, whereby users are selected to be representative of the user population. They evaluate the product, workplace, or system against a predetermined set of evaluative criteria (performance, preferences) and thus some judgement can then be made as to the suitability of the design, and recommendations made accordingly. However, user trials are expensive and efforts to involve older and disabled consumers are often hampered by a lack of understanding of their additional requirements (access, pacing, transport needs, ethical concerns). Also, many designers work by themselves and do not always feel they have the skills (or support) to work with these user groups

Virtual fitting trials in 'design for all'

’Design for All’ embraces the concept of designing products and workplaces so as not to exclude significant sections of the total user population. In particular the needs of old and disabled people are to be considered alongside the younger and able-bodied population to ensure that products that are equally appropriate for all users. This is to be contrasted with a ’Design for the Disabled’ approach where the special needs of disabled people are considered in order to provide products that may only be appropriate for that section of society. Fitting trials are an established technique in ergonomics where a product or workplace is evaluated by trials (perhaps on a mock-up or prototype) using a carefully selected user group that is representative of the total target population. Typically subject selection would be based on age, gender, size, etc, and total sample sizes limited to perhaps a few dozen. A percentage of the population accommodated by the design can then be determined by reference to a set of elemental tasks such as reaching to controls. In this research the fitting trials are virtual in that computer modelling techniques are used to create a three-dimensional geometric model of the workplace/product and evaluation is achieved using a human model that can be varied to represent the individuals within the sample. There is a lack of anthropometric and biomechanical data relating to older and disabled people so a small-scale survey is being undertaken so that an appropriate population of computer human models can be created. Methods are being developed to allow the percentage accommodated by a design to be determined in relation to a description of tasks to be carried out. Currently an ATM (Automated Teller Machine) design is being used as a case study to develop these techniques. Further research will eventually be undertaken to extend the data, generalise the percentage accommodation evaluation and to optimise the design in terms of percentage accommodation

Collection of design data from older and disabled people

If designers are to ‘design for all’, and consider the needs of older and disabled people when designing every day products and environments, data on the physical sizes and capabilities of older and disabled people, as well as able-bodied people, are needed. This paper discusses part of the work of a 3-year project, aimed at redressing some of this balance and providing a computer software tool to assist designers in considering the needs of older and disabled people. This paper briefly describes some of the methods devised and used for the collection of data, and focuses on the ethical considerations of collecting data from older and disabled people, and some of the issues that arose during the data collection

Supporting 'design for all' through an integrated computer-aided ergonomics tool

The aims of this paper are: • Provide a background to the Design for All (DFAll) philosophy and its importance to the design community • Present some initial findings of a survey into the DFAll needs and desires of design practitioners • Highlight a few specific details of an integrated computer aided ergonomics solution being developed in response to those needs