Inclusive Designing ― Joining Usability, Accessibility, and Inclusion

‘Inclusive Designing’ presents the proceedings of the seventh Cambridge Workshop on Universal Access and Assistive Technology (CWUAAT '14). It represents a unique multi-disciplinary workshop for the Inclusive Design Research community where designers, computer scientists, engineers, architects, ergonomists, policymakers and user communities can exchange ideas. The research presented at CWUAAT '14 develops methods, technologies, tools and guidance that support product designers and architects to design for the widest possible population for a given range of capabilities, within a contemporary social and economic context. In the context of developing demographic changes leading to greater numbers of older people and people with disabilities, the general field of Inclusive Design Research strives to relate the capabilities of the population to the design of products. Inclusive populations of older people contain a greater variation in sensory, cognitive and physical user capabilities. These variations may be co-occurring and rapidly changing leading to a demanding design environment. Recent research developments have addressed these issues in the context of: governance and policy; daily living activities; the workplace; the built environment, Interactive Digital TV and Mobile communications. Increasingly, a need has been identified for a multidisciplinary approach that reconciles the diverse and sometimes conflicting demands of Design for Ageing and Impairment, Usability and Accessibility and Universal Access. CWUAAT provides a platform for such a need. This book is intended for researchers, postgraduates, design practitioners, clinical practitioners, and design teachers.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Lucienne Blessing studied Industrial Design Engineering in Delft, the Netherlands, where she obtained her MSc in 1984. Until 1992 she worked at the University of Twente (NL) in the department of Mechanical Engineering as a lecturer. Here she obtained her PhD in the area of Knowledge Management in Design. The following 8 years she worked at the Engineering Department of the University of Cambridge (UK), initially as senior research associate and from 1995 as Assistant Director of the Engineering Design Centre. In 2000 she was appointed to the Chair of Engineering Design and Methodology at the University of Technology Berlin. In 2007 she left Berlin to become vice-president for research at the University of Luxembourg, where she also has a chair in Engineering Design and Methodology.

Her research interests include: the product development process, diversity (culture, age and gender), user-technology interaction, design methodology and design research methodology.

She has been lecturing since 1985 covering the following topics: introduction to process control, technical drawing and projection theory, design research methods, machine elements, systematic product development. Furthermore, 21 researchers successfully defended their PhD under her supervision and 5 under her co-supervision; currently she is supervising 5 doctoral candidates.

Since 1999 Lucienne Blessing is co-organiser of the International Summer School on Engineering Design Research, a 2-week course for PhD students. In 2000, she co-founded the Design Society, was elected member of its Management Board from 2000-2005, and has since been an elected member on its Advisory Board. She was co-editor of the journal Research in Engineering Design (Springer Verlag) from 1994-2009. Together with Ken Wallace (UK), she translated the German standard book on Engineering Design from Professors Pahl and Beitz into English. She has written a book on Design Research Methodology together with Prof. Amaresh Chakrabarti, and is (co)author of over 160 peer-reviewed publications. She has been in the organization and programme committees of various conferences, and is reviewer of journal articles, conference papers, as well as research projects.

Dr. A.J. Qureshi studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Engineering and Technology (UET Lahore) Lahore in Pakistan where he Obtained his B.Sc. Mechanical Engineering in 2002. Afterwards he worked for following 4 years in the petrochemical and oil and gas industry in the field of turbomachinery reliability. In 2007 he obtained a Master degree in “Design, Industrialisation and Innovation” from Arts et Metiers ParisTech, Metz France in with specialisation in Tolerance optimisation in detailed design. Here he also obtained his PhD in 2011 in the area of robust design in mechanical product design while working as a lecturer in the department of “Applied mathematics, informatics and design”. Since 2011he is working as a research associate at the University of Luxembourg in the Engineering Design and Methodology Group with Prof.Dr.-Ing Lucienne Blessing. He is also teaches engineering design at Arts et Metiers ParisTech Paris, France.

His research interests include: the product development process, design automation, simulation based design, knowledge management in integrated design, tolerance allocation and analysis in mechanical product design, robust design. He is currently undertaken research project is entitled “Transdisciplinary Analysis of Design Methodologies and Approaches” which proposes:

1. to obtain a better understanding of communalities and differences of the design methodologies and the methods developed and used in different domains, as well as of the reasons for acceptance or rejection (much of the developed support is not used);

2. to use this understanding to develop a transdisciplinary a