Useability of small kitchen appliances

A busy array of small kitchen appliances and cooking utensils.Mealtimes are made easier with a range of small kitchen appliances. But can everyone use them? Meal preparation is something most of us do every day. It’s not until you can’t do it that you realise how much it impacts on wellbeing, independence and quality of life. 

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee worked with General Electric to develop an audit tool they can apply to the design of their small appliances. The tool can be used by engineers, retailers and individuals as well. The title of the tool is Small Kitchen Appliance Accessibility and Universal Design Information Tool (SKA AUDIT). It includes 7 features: doors, lids, dials, on/off water reservoirs, buttons and “ready” indicators. Both physical and cognitive conditions were considered in the development of the tool.

The title of the article is Small Kitchen Appliance Accessibility and Universal Design Information Tool (SKA AUDIT).  

From the abstract  

Over a quarter of Americans have a disability. These affect mobility, self-care, and household activities including meal preparation and housework. Preparing meals at home is a powerful way to reduce the risk of depression, stroke, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, and inflammatory diseases such as arthritis.

Small kitchen appliances play a significant role in meal preparation and have the potential to help increase the independence. Currently, very few guidelines exist to ensure that small kitchen appliances are accessible and usable.

This paper discusses the development of the Small Kitchen Appliance Accessibility and Universal Design Information Tool (SKA AUDIT). The tool allows practitioners to score the accessibility and usability of common small kitchen appliance features based on their client’s impairments. It also helps with choosing more usable small kitchen appliances.

The Pain of Design

A work table is filled with paper and folders and a woman is cutting a piece of paper with scissors. It looks like a group of people are working on a design.Arthritis is a common condition and is not often referred to as a disability. However, the pain of arthritis is disabling. So how to design out pain? Design Council ran a workshop with people with arthritis. They found that no-one was interested in special products, which are often stigmatising. So the principle of inclusive design became the top issue.

“Inclusive design is crucial. You have to step away from the idea that it’s “older people” having a problem and start looking at a universal problem and therefore a universal solution.”

They found the most important thing is that people want desirable, stylish, mainstream products that anyone would want to own. People don’t want medicalised, stigmatising equipment. Clearly, including the user-voice is the way to design for all rather than the mythical average. 

The article is titled, Ollie Phelan of Versus Arthritis writes about the importance of the end-user being at the heart of design, and can be accessed on the Medium.com website where there is more information.

 

Breakfast Toast Made Easy

one slice of toast sits on a small white place.How much design thought is needed to make the common pop-up toaster easier to use? An article by industrial designer Ayushi Suri gives us the answer in step by step detail. If you’ve ever wondered how designers go about their projects, this article shows the amount of work and detailed thinking that’s required. In this case Suri had a look at other designs for inspiration. They included fast trains! At the end of the article are pictures of an attractive prototype. I particularly liked the dial for selecting the level of browning. This kind of design is good for people with reduced dexterity and grip strength. It meets most of the 7 Principles of Universal Design – simple and intuitive to use, perceptible information, low physical effort and tolerance for error. 

 

Highlighting the ‘Dark Side’

young people sit at a table which has a large sheet of paper and writing implements. They appear to be discussing something.Critical Design is a way of challenging stereotypes and prejudice. It is a way of looking at the world from the “dark side” of design thinking. A paper presented at a recent engineering and product design conference explains how design students responded to a series of workshops using the critical design method. The process does not focus on designing solutions. Rather, it focuses on designing to highlight the problem. The idea is to get the participants to think about the problem in greater depth. This is where satire and irony can be used to convey the message of stigma and exclusion. Students were also challenged to consider user empowerment, or how they might reshape societal and cultural stereotypes.

The authors explain, “it is essential that they are armed with design methods for tackling the challenges of stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. Furthermore, they must gain valuable experience of interdisciplinary work in order to be prepared for the ‘real’ world, outside of university”.

They conclude the article with, “Whether CD alone can help in battling stereotypes, prejudices, discrimination, and stigma – in so doing achieving a more diverse and inclusive society – we don’t quite know but are sure that it’s a good way to start!

The title of the paper is, Addressing the issue of stigma-free design through critical design workshops.  

Abstract: 

Stereotypes and prejudices are a ubiquitous cultural phenomenon that can impinge on peoples’ wellbeing. Moreover, the power of public stigma can make users of certain products experience discrimination, alienation, and inequality. Such experiences increase the likelihood of individuals rejecting products, services, environments, etc. altogether, often depriving them of e.g. safety, efficiency, and independence.

In a worst-case scenario this can lead to a stigmatised condition that triggers further inequality and exclusion. In an increasingly complex world, it is imperative that those responsible for addressing future needs, challenges, and demands, i.e. the next generation of designers, architects, engineers, etc., are adequately equipped as regards methods and tools for battling existing stereotypes and prejudices related to social growth and development in society.

Through this, they will ensure that stigma-free design is a priority when initiating, planning, and executing future projects. The purpose of this paper is to describe what happens when critical design is used to explore the stigma associated with existing products, services, environments, etc. in the context of interdisciplinary workshops, and to discuss the results so far.

Furthermore, the paper examines whether and how this upside-down way of thinking about and performing design is a good contribution to the fields of design, architecture, engineering, etc. as a method of both teaching and learning about equality, diversity, and inclusion.

Open Sesame! Packaging made easy

Exploded view of the package and all its partsIn marketing terms, the packaging is part of the product. The package shape, colour and brand are important in enticing consumers to buy. But all too often we have to get a sharp knife, a pair of scissors and wrestle with the packaging in order to get to the product inside. Microsoft has come up with a nice solution to packaging their Xbox Adaptive Controller – a gamepad for people who might not have use of their limbs. Good thinking – no good having a nicely designed accessible product that you can’t get out of the box! The video below shows the simple but effective design. There is another video on the FastCompany website or see the engadget website. Package designers take note. 

The title of the article is How Microsoft fixed the worst thing about product packaging.

 

Co-design with older adults

A creative workshop scene. A woman is holding a pair of scissors, another is holding a pen over paper. Co-design with older adults.Finding out what older adults might want and need in their daily living experiences takes more than just asking them, especially if they have a cognitive impairment. A recent study found that using creative methods, such as drawing and creating models, older people can express their needs in a tactile format. This also creates rapport with designers who can then devise better mobility, dining and leisure activities. This method is enjoyable for all participants.

The title of the article is, Participatory Design with Older Adults: Exploring the Latent Needs of Young-Old and Middle-Old in Daily Living Using a Universal Design Approach. You will need institutional access for a free read from SpringerLink.

Or ask for a free read through ResearchGate.

From the abstract:

Population ageing will continue to accelerate due to continuing decline in fertility and improvement in survival in major diseases. People who are experiencing cognitive or physical impairment, they often feel alone and experience different degrees of social loneliness.

This paper discusses co-design experiences with various stakeholders to explore latent needs of older persons in their daily living using a universal design approach. Through iterative use of creative methods, freehand sketching and physical models, older adults express their needs in a more accurate, tactile format.

Findings reveal that commonality of interest among older persons are important in building rapport among other participants. It also helps designers develop designs related to health care, mobility, dining and leisure activities.

Older adults and co-design

Close up of an older man and woman with their heads together dancing. He is wearing a hat and cravat, and she is wearing a red flower in her hair. They look loving.Older adults want the same designs as anyone else. Too often older people are gathered together under the umbrella of “the elderly”. This term assumes everyone is the same. It’s applied to people as young as 60 or 65 and every age after that. We can debate the terms of “older” and “elderly” but in the end, we are talking about people and design.

An article in Design Week challenges assumptions about older people and design. It reports on a study involving older people in design projects. They found older people “want what we want”. The ‘we’ in this context is young designers. A key point is that people can live independently for longer if things are designed around their needs. In the end, age isn’t relevant. But designing inclusively is. That’s why devices designed specifically for older people are bought but often abandoned. 

The title of the article is, Why age is often the “least relevant thing” when co-designing with the elderly.  It’s an easy read magazine article with good points for designers.

What does inclusion actually mean?

Graphic of stick people in various poses with the caption, "Inclusiveness,, looking at everyoneKat Holmes found the origin of include was to “shut in”. Similarly, the origin of exclude was to “shut out”. Maybe “inclusion” is not the right word for describing the inclusion of everyone in products, places and things. Holmes explains in the video below, that the topic of diversity is discussed in her workplace as gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnicity, and race. Disability is usually mentioned last in the list, if at all. “But it is the one category that transcends all other categories”, she says. “Abilities are constantly changing”. 

Holmes’ offers an alternative way for designers to consider diversity, and is based on her book, Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design. An engaging talk for all upcoming designers in any field. And not just professional designers either. We all design things every day, so we all have a role to play. 

Editor’s Note: I discussed this issue in a 2009 paper. Inclusion is problematic inasmuch as it requires those who are already included to invite into the group those who are excluded. Semantics can be important. What we need is inclusiveness – that’s where inclusion has already happened and there are no exclusions. Inclusion is a futuristic concept insofar as it is something for which we are striving, for if it were achieved, no discussion would be needed.

Diversity, inclusion and wearables

An Apple watch is sitting across an Apple iPhone on a desktop.Clothing and fashion tastes vary from person to person, so it should be assumed that no two people will have the same taste in wearables. A study of women’s preferences and concerns about wearables found that in terms of aesthetics, they needed to have elements of personalisation to suit different situations and style. This is a case where one size does not fit all. Some were happy with brightly coloured and conspicuous wearables, while others preferred muted tones. Early commercialisation brought about large, ugly, clunky and very masculine-looking wearables that didn’t take off well in the market. So it is good to see some research on this aspect.

According to the research, important factors in wearables are the social and cultural connocations, how they portray women and whether women are ready to accept the attention these devices might bring. Privacy is another concern in terms of what these devices might give away through sharing information via social media. Of course, including a broad range of users in the design development is essential for success.

The title of the article is Diversity and Inclusivity in the Age of Wearables: A Buzzword, a Myth, an Uncertain Reality.  This is an open access publication that discusses how we use technology to empower individuals and improve our way of living in the world, particularly from the perspective of women.

Designing around people

Book cover - dark blue background with white writing for the title, Designing Around People.Designing Around People is the publication of sessions held across three days held at University of Cambridge (UK). Known as CWUAAT (Cambridge Workshops on Universal Access and Assistive Technology), it is an international gathering of people interested in inclusive design across different fields. Designers, engineers, computer engineers, ergonomists, ethnographers, policymakers and user communities, meet, discuss and collaborate. People come from diverse communities to this biennial workshop; France, India, China, Norway, Slovakia, USA, Denmark and many more. A good reference for anyone researching inclusive practice.

As the range of topics is diverse, individual chapters are available for purchase if you don’t have institutional access from SpringerLink.  You can download the PDF of the Preface and the chapter list from the link. 

Where would you like to sit?

brightly coloured simple folding chairs in an outdoor cafe setting.Tanisha Cowell gives her perspective on seat design as an occupational therapist and interior designer. She says her five features for great seats is not rocket science and seems common sense, but as always, it’s the little details that make a difference. Of course backrests and armrests get a mention, but also where to place seating, say in a park or a cafe. Did you think about colour contrast and height of the seat, or even the thickness of a seat? Tanisha has something to say about these too. And what about a cushion for the leisurely Sunday breakfast at your favourite cafe?  

Shaped by Space

Looking down into a large open plan office with desks and partitionsWinston Churchill famously said, “‘we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.” Many would agree. But what about space – does that shape us too? In his article about office workspaces, Scott Simpson says the design of the spaces in which we live, work and play has a profound effect on how people interact.Sometimes the effect is quite subtle, and sometimes it is more obvious, but in all cases, space shapes the context for what we do and how we do it, even though its effect is frequently taken for granted.” He goes on to say that the way space is configured creates the context, sets the tone and gives off subtle yet powerful messages for how people are expected to behave. The article is on the Design Intelligence website.  

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