23 August 2006

Study examines relationship between design and disabled people

Are designers doing enough to make sure new technologies can be effectively used by disabled people? How can disabled people be more involved in the design of new devices?

Those are the questions being asked in a new research project at the University of Dundee, which has been attracted funding of £250,000.

Professor Jennifer Harris, of the University’s School of Education, Social Work and Community Education, has received the grant from the Economic and Social Research Council for her project, titled, "The use, role and application of advanced technologies in the lives of disabled people".

Professor Harris is an expert in the field of social policy and how it relates to disabled people. She says that all too often in the past, disabled people have been an afterthought in the design process.

"There is a tremendous amount of waste in terms of the amount of new equipment that is put into the homes of disabled people and simply isn’t used," said Professor Harris.

"I have for instance seen automatic tin openers that are meant to be designed for use by disabled people but they come with the assumption that you have two working hands to operate the machine."

"Problems like that are all too common, and often there has been the temptation to stick a big bright button on a machine and assume that it can then be operated by someone who is disabled. That isn’t enough."

"What we will look at in this project is how the process of design could be more effectively handled and the difference it would make if the end users of a product were more involved in the early design stages."

Professor Harris said there was a need to develop better, more efficient devices for disabled people to use.

"Disabled people rely on these devices, so it is essential that they work well and are extremely reliable. Those are factors which only come about through good design, so it is important that it is approached in the right way."

The grant from the ESRC will fund the project for the next two years. Professor Harris will be working with colleagues in the School of Nursing and Midwifery (Dr. Thilo Kroll) and the School of Computing (Professor John Arnott and Dr. Nick Hine) at Dundee.

NOTES TO EDITORS

The ESRC is the UK's largest funding agency for research and postgraduate training relating to social and economic issues. It provides independent, high quality, relevant research to business, the public sector and Government. The ESRC total expenditure in 2005/6 was £135million. At any one time the ESRC supports over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic institutions and research policy institutes. More at http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk

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