Author: Jane Bringolf

Design, Dignity and Dementia Report

Front cover of the Design Dignity Dementia Report.The field of dementia and the design of the built environment is not well understood. Until now. Comprehensive Australian research has resulted in two volumes on the topic. The research looks at current best practice in design, and regional and cultural aspects. It also covers the importance of including people with dementia in the design process. The impact of the pandemic is another discussion point. People with dementia have the same human rights as others and that includes being treated with dignity.

The first volume is about the approach to the topic, the thorny issues, design processes and the 10 principles they developed. The second volume presents 84 case studies from around the world. A collection of day care centres, residential care facilities, and public buildings illustrate good design principles. The case studies include architectural detail and photos illustrate some of the design points.

The title of the report is, World Alzheimer Report 2020: Design, Dignity, Dementia: dementia-related design and the built environment. Authors are Prof Richard Fleming, John Zeisel and Kirsty Bennett.

The report launch webinar gives a good overview. Unfortunately the captions are auto-generated so they aren’t the best. However you can increase the speed and still understand the content.

Principles of dementia 

    • Unobtrusively reducing risks: Minimise risk factors such as steps and ensure safety features are as unobtrusive as possible.
    • Providing a human scale: The scale of buildings can impact the behaviour of people with dementia, so provide a human scale to minimise intimidating features.
    • Allowing people to see and be seen: The provision of an easily understood environment will help to minimise confusion. A literal line of sight should be clear for both residents, and staff.
    • Reducing unhelpful stimulation: Environments should be designed to minimise exposure to stimuli that are unhelpful, such as unnecessary or competing noises and the sight of unnecessary signs, posters, spaces and clutter.
    • Optimise helpful stimulation: Enabling the person living with dementia to see, hear and smell things that give them cues about where they are and what they can do, can help minimise their confusion and uncertainty.
    • Support movement and engagement: Providing a well-defined pathway of movement, free of obstacles, can support engagement with people and opportunities.
    • Create a familiar place: The use of familiar building design, furniture, fittings and colours affords people with dementia an opportunity to maintain their competence.
    • Provide opportunities to be alone or with others: A variety of spaces, some for quiet conversation and some for larger groups, as well as spaces where people can be by themselves, gives people with dementia a choice to how they spend their time.
    • Link to the community: The more an environment enables visitors to drop in easily and enjoy being in places that encourage interaction, the more the sense of identity that comes from spending time with loved ones and others is reinforced.
    • Design in response to vision for way of life: The way of life offered needs to be clearly stated and the building designed both to support it and to make it evident to the residents and staff.

Urban public space and active ageing

An older man and woman are walking away from the camera down a street. They are wearing backpacks and holding hands.China, Singapore and Japan have a policy framework that supports older people to remain within the community. Many Western countries have favoured the age-segregated community model. Regardless, both need to take a holistic view of the lives of older people to maintain quality of life. The design of urban public space is key to this approach.  Social participation is part of staying healthy and active in older age. A study using an active ageing framework draws together physical, social and mental health into a strategy for urban design. The author argues that adding accessible, barrier-free to existing spaces is insufficient to encourage participation. Creating age-friendly spaces that are not joined up also needs to be addressed. Ageing is much more than providing health care or islands of specialised design for older people. The answer is public space that has mixed functions and integrates all generations. That is, universal design. One of the strategies is taken from an example in Japan where a day care centre is adjacent a kindergarten. The space between is designed to encourage interaction. While this is not a new idea, it is yet to be realised more widely in new developments and urban renewal projects. The world’s population is getting older. More people are living 30 or more years in older age, and many are maintaining health for longer. Urban design has a role to play in supporting our longevity in all aspects of health and wellbeing. It is also about dignity and independence. The title of the paper is, The Research on the Optimum Design Strategies of the Public Space Against the Background of Active Aging.  Editor’s note on terminology: “Older people” is the preferred terminology in Western cultures, not “the elderly” as if they are an homogeneous group.  ABSTRACT:  The urban public space is an important part of the daily living space of the elderly. The paper explores the practical significance of the urban public space in meeting the psychological needs of the elderly and their will to participate in the society. The urban elderly space based on the concept of active aging, is conducive to the spiritual consolation and satisfaction of the elderly in the space with multigenerational integration, multi-functional combination and guidance and helps guide the elderly to realize their self-worth through learning and creating and participating in the society more comprehensively. Based on the theory of active aging, the paper analyzes the differences of the functions of the urban public space for the elderly in China and in view of the limitations of the design of urban public space for the elderly in China. With typical cases in China and abroad, it proposes the ideas and directions of optimum designs of urban public space for the elderly and summarizes the design strategies of the active responses to aging of the urban public space for the elderly.

Screen readers and web content

A computer page showing JAWS for Windows screen reader home pageIf you haven’t seen it in action, screen reader technology is not what you might expect. Experienced users listen at a speed most of us couldn’t contemplate. But screen readers are only as good as what they are given to read – it is a machine after all. The way web content is written, described and placed makes a difference to the efficiency of the reading device and the user.

Axess Lab has a four minute video of a how a screen reader works.  If you haven’t seen this before it makes for fascinating viewing. In the video Marc Sutton explains some of the basics. The Axess Lab website also has advice for the more tech side of things as well for desktops and mobile readers.

Web designers might do all the right things in designing the site pages, but sometimes it is the document uploads where things fall apart for screen readers. For example, when you insert a table into a document, have you ever thought about how a screen reader might decipher this? Marc Sutton shows what happens and how to make it more accessible.

Vision Australia has a YouTube clip with a Jaws user explaining how it works for her. Nomesa blog site has additional information. 

Screen readers work with the computer’s operating system and common applications. It relays information either by speech or Braille. The majority of users control things with the keyboard, not the mouse.  If web pages are well structured, screen readers can interact easily. There are good reasons why websites should suit screen readers. 

Accessible forms, video and chatbots

A young woman sits at a desk with her laptop open. She has her face covered by her hands and is indicating distress

As the digital age moves ahead we need to make sure we aren’t creating a digital divide between those who are up to date and those who aren’t or can’t be. The canaxess website has three on-line and downloadable fact sheets that provide some of the simplest but effective advice.

For example, in Principles of accessible video – don’t set to the video to scroll on opening. In Principles of accessible forms – don’t use an asterisk to indicate a mandatory field – screen readers announce “star”. In Principles of accessible bots – placing in lower right of the screen is difficult for keyboard users. For people who upload information or documents to their website, there are some good tips. For others who know about coding there is really helpful information. 

 

Economic value of universal housing design

Front cover of the report showing an older grey-haired couple sitting together smiling. Title is exploring the economic value in housing built to universal design principles.Consumers buy things that they want and need now rather than purchasing things with the future in mind. Well, that makes sense. For everyday items this poses no problems. But for expensive, longer lasting items, such as a home, it can be a problem. Many older Australians live in a home that was purchased in mid life. It was suitable then. But now that cherished home is challenging their independence in older age. That’s why all homes should have universal design features. A new report based on a survey of care-givers, both paid and unpaid, provides insights into their experiences and observations on the impact of home design on their caring role. The researchers found that housing design features and proximity to amenities had a value that extended beyond those of residents. That is, it facilitates community capacity and social engagement, physical wellbeing and ease of providing care services.  The executive summary concludes with a statement that supports universal design in housing for people to age well:

“The public value implicit in universally designed housing is conceptually demonstrated by associated increases in ageing well outcomes and reduction in the need for, the level of, and the time spent on, care to support positive ageing outcomes (ie. generating efficiency gains in achieving ageing well outcomes).

The key findings of the study 

    • Universal design features impact on the level of care needed to support ageing well.
    • The location of the home and access to amenities also has an impact on the level of care needed.
    • The time needed to support people with basic living activities is reduced.
The title of the report is, Exploring the economic value embedded in housing built to universal design principles: Bridging the gap between public placemaking and private residential housing. The study was undertaken by RMIT University and the Longevity Group Australia.

From the abstract:

We explore the public value implicit in housing incorporating universal design principles. Value is conceptually demonstrated by identifying housing design and location attributes, associated with increases in ageing well outcomes via the reduction in the time spent on caring duties. A survey captured the experiential knowledge of in-home care service providers and their observations of the impact of the home on the ageing well outcomes.  We found that certain housing design and location features have value that extends beyond that experienced solely by its residents. It also facilitates community capacity and social engagement, physical wellbeing and ease of delivery of public services such as care support.  

Ambient Technology: Assistive or Intrusive?

A graphic of a blue body with different labels around it. For example, telehealth, patient monitoring, assisted living.Designing and creating electronic devices for older people so they can stay home in their later years is a good thing. But are they actually what older people want? It’s a balancing act between assistance for independence versus privacy intrusions. Where do you draw the line? And will the older person have a say in where that line is drawn? These are tricky questions and the answers are likely to be individual. And what happens to any data that are collected both deliberately and as a by-product?

A conference paper from Germany discusses some of these issues as we are increasingly looking to technology to solve our problems. The issues raised in could benefit from a universal design perspective. Taking this view, one would ask, “How can we make ambient technology more universal and general and less specialised so that people don’t feel stigmatised? As Eva-Maria Schomakers and Martina Ziefle say, privacy concerns include the feeling of constant surveillance, misuse of personal information by third parties, as well as the invasion of personal space, obtrusiveness and stigmatising design of these technologies.

The title of the article is Privacy Perceptions in Ambient Assisted Living 

Ambient Assisted Living is a growing field of research. A related paper on ResearchGate “Enabling Technologies for the Internet of Health Things”, might be a place to start. It contains some useful diagrams.

What is user experience?

Graphic of a male sitting behind a computer screen with the words web design on the wall behind him.Technology has advanced to a point where almost anyone can set up a website – no coding experience needed!  It’s easy to get carried away with glitz, glamour, flashing signs and a swinging carousel of images. This is where user experience, or UX, comes into play. And let’s not forget web accessibility. Many of us have something to do with a website. So whether we contribute to one, manage one, or are commissioning one, there are some basics to know. First some statistics. Seventeen per cent of users will not return after just one bad experience. Forty-eight per cent of users are annoyed by sites that aren’t mobile friendly.  The DreamHost blog has two articles, one explaining how UX works, and the other is about web accessibility. It’s a pity they weren’t joined up into one article. Accessibility is not an optional add-on. It should be considered from the outset of the initial design and be a continuous process for ongoing content.  While the UX article focuses on “target audience” and forgets this audience might need accessibility features, it has some useful advice. No need to get too bogged down with detail here. It covers navigation, content, animation, and responsiveness. The article, 10 ways to make your website accessible is a good start for anyone new to the concept. It covers many of the basics such as colour choice, adding descriptions to images, and text size. Avoid tables for presenting data because screen readers can’t read them unless they are coded correctly. An accessible site expands the potential audience and helps with search engine rankings. See also Web accessibility techniques: A guide and the section on ICT guidelines on this website for more information.  Editor’s note: We do our best with accessibility and rely on in-built coding with the free software we use to keep the site running. We receive no funding to run this service. However, we welcome feedback if you find specific difficulties with this website. 

Captioning and Subtitles

Front page of the video - deep yellow background with white text and an Auslan interpreter is standing readyWhat is the difference between captions and subtitles? This is a common question. Captioning can be done live as people speak, or it can be added to recorded video. Subtitles are translations from another language. What’s interesting is that most people can read captions and subtitles quite quickly.  The Australian Government has produced an interesting video showing how captioning is done. It is a behind the scenes look and captioners tell how they do it. You can see them at their desks in action. One point of interest is that programs made overseas often have captions, but they don’t always come with the program when a network buys it. Intellectual property rights become problematic and in the end it is often quicker and cheaper to re-do the captions here in Australia. So that might account for why SBS is more likely to have uncaptioned programs than some other networks – unless they are subtitled of course. There is a second video showing how to turn captions on. 

Subtitles

a desk with two computer screens and subtitles at the bottomSo how fast should subtitles be shown? It seems most of us can read subtitles more quickly than first thought. Recent research revealed that the golden standard of the six second rule doesn’t have any (traceable) evidence to back it up. Now that we know people watch audio-visual materials more frequently with subtitles and captions, this is an important topic – what is the optimum speed? A study from Europe found it isn’t one-size-fits all. They found that viewers can keep up with fast subtitles and that slow speeds can actually be annoying. However, future research needs to include a wider range of people with different levels of reading skill. The title of the paper is, Viewers can keep up with fast subtitles: Evidence from eye movements.  Editor’s Note: Some set-ups allow you to increase the speed of the video and still read the captions. I can get all the content of a ten minute video in five to seven minutes this way. 

Design for Humanity: People and Planet

A silhouette of a person with arms outstretched around a globe of a mosaic of faces representing people of the world.Is the quest for inclusive design so difficult that we need so many different terms? Are new-fangled methodologies improving the situation if the aims are the same? Many different ways of promoting the process of designing inclusively is surely confusing everyone. Enter “Humanity-Centred Design”. This one is a bit different because it’s about the planet as well as people. Many of our current and future designs will be inhabited by upcoming generations whose consumption patterns will have different values. According to an article from the UK designers need to embody the values of inclusion, ethics, empathy and cooperation. Designs will need to be meaningful to appeal to upcoming generations. Hence the proposition of a new paradigm or model – Humanity-Centred Design.  The title of the article is, Humanity-Centred Design – Defining the Emerging Paradigm in Design Education and Practice.  The Sustainable Development Goals also embody similar values and these are gaining traction in many fields of work. The chart below is from the paper and shows the evolution from functional approach to a people focused approach. A circular chart showing progression from function focused in the 1940s to humanity focused in the 2030s.

From the abstract

Several different paradigms define product design as it has evolved to meet the needs and desires of people.  As the needs and desires of people are increasingly met by products at all price points, companies need to embrace a new paradigm which will enable them to differentiate their products from the competition. People are also increasingly aware of both the limited and depleting natural resources of the planet and the prevalence of inequality and poverty present in the world. A paradigm is emerging which enables companies to address all the above simultaneously. This paradigm and approach to designing products is referred to as ‘Humanity-Centred Design’ in intentional reference to the ‘User-Centred Design’ and ‘Human-Centred Design’ methodologies. There is a greater focus on designing products which are both sustainable and actively contribute to the alleviation of poverty in all forms and promote human development and wellbeing worldwide. This paradigm is being taught to students of Product Design at Buckinghamshire New University to ensure that they are prepared to design products for the newest and future generations and the greatest proportion of consumers.

Inclusive Design: Knowing isn’t Doing

Hands and arms reach down to a table with a drawing and coloured post it notes. Knowing about inclusive design and actually doing inclusive design are two different things. That is, industrial design students can tell you what inclusive design is and that it is important, but there is little evidence it shows up in their designs. This was one of the findings from a study of design engineering students. Inclusive design (ID) modules are integrated in several university courses but the uptake in industry is quite low. The aim of a UK study was to find out what factors can drive better industry outcomes to move towards ID. The report of the findings has some recommendations including briefly:

– Methods and tools need to be covered in more depth – Class exercises and case studies to demonstrate advantages and disadvantages – User involvement requires extensive resources – Discussion and confrontation is also needed

There is more to be gained from reading the paper which is titled, Inclusive Design Education: How to Get it Right. Abstract: The study reported in this paper aims to understand graduate skills in relation to Inclusive Design (ID) knowledge, tools and methods and how these are related to the curriculum delivered throughout their degree programme. It focusses on students graduating from the Product Design Engineering (PDE) degree programme at the University of Strathclyde. Two research questions are addressed – What Inclusive Design skills do Product Design Engineering graduates typically possess? How might the current curriculum be reviewed to facilitate the enrichment of Inclusive Design skills? Findings report on prevalence of ID tools, methods and skills in graduating students’ project work. A comparison is drawn between evidenced application of ID methods and tools and perceived skills captured from survey results. Reflections on current curriculum and pedagogical approaches are made with discussion focusing on potential adaptations to enhance ID skills in graduates completing the PDE course. Trends including which ID tools and methods are used most/least often or collectively are reported. A comparison is drawn between evidenced application of ID methods and tools and perceived skills captured from survey results. Reflections on current curriculum and pedagogical approaches are made with discussion focusing on potential adaptations to enhance ID skills in graduate Product Design Engineer cohorts.

UD, ID, DfA, UX: A terminology muddle

A hand holding a coloured pen is poised over a green post it note. There are drawings on the table and a smartphone. It indicates UX design. UD, ID, DfA, UX, UA muddle.

Researchers find it frustrating not having one term to cover the concept of equity and inclusion. One term would ensure we are all talking about the same thing.  But how about practitioners? It’s confusing for them too. The aims of universal design (UD), inclusive design (ID), design for all (DfA), and user experience (UX), have the same aim – inclusion. So why should we have a terminology muddle?

Most designers and practitioners who understand the underpinning principle of inclusion, say it’s not a big deal. But shouldn’t the key issue be about implementation rather than discussing the nuances of terms? Even if we had one term, would that alter designer and practitioner attitudes towards inclusion?

The complaint about terminology among academics has resulted in many papers on this topic. New terms are proposed as a solution but serve only to confuse more. Some even put forth arguments that they are all different things. 

A paper from 2014 is still relevant today because the arguments are still current. This paper discusses historical, methodological and philosophical aspects. It’s a long paper, probably best suited to academics. It covers just about every aspect of the issues. It also draws in the ICF (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health) and international standards which is quite useful. 

The title of the paper downloadable from ResearchGate says it all, Universal design, inclusive design, accessible design, design for all: different concepts—one goal? On the concept of accessibility—historical, methodological and philosophical aspects.

What’s it called?

Picture of the back of a house that is being built. The ground is just dirt. Overlaid are words in different colours: Adaptable, Universal, Visitable, Usable, Accessible, Disabled, Flexible Different disciplines, different practitioners, and different countries have evolved their own terms. Academics find this problematic as it makes it difficult to build an international body of research on a topic where terminology can vary so much. Regulations and codes have not helped the cause:

Editor’s note: I also wrote on this topic in 2009: Calling a Spade a Shovel: Universal, accessible, adaptable, disabled – aren’t they all the same? Or you can get the quick version from the PowerPoint presentation.

Abstract

Promoting the efficacies of universally designed built environments has been one of the ongoing quests of disability and ageing advocacy groups, and more recently, governments. The underpinning principle of universal design is inclusiveness – that is, to design across the population spectrum for people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds. This means ensuring architectural features do not inadvertently become architectural barriers to inclusion in everyday social and economic life.

The drive for social and economic inclusion for people with disabilities has recently moved up the political agenda and new policy directions at national and state levels are emerging. Political will is a necessary but insufficient condition to guarantee inclusion if industry does not understand what constitutes inclusiveness in design, and does not understand the differences in terms used in the built environment in relation to inclusion, disability and ageing.

Using the NSW Government’s call for tenders for social housing, and an academic paper as examples, this paper discusses how using various terms such as accessible and adaptable interchangeably might defeat the objective of inclusion, and how the misuse and confusion in terminology hinders not only the uptake of universal design in a practical way, but also stymies academic debate on the topic.