Friday Design Principle(s): The 7 Principles of Universal Design

So many designs principle in one day!

In 1997 a working group of professionals got together at N.C. State University and came up with The 7 Principles of Universal Design. The notion of designing with accessibility in mind is a noble one, and ultimately causes a “the tide raises all boats” effect. An excellent example of this are sidewalk curb cuts: while intended to assist individuals using a wheelchair, curb cuts also benefit parents with kids in strollers.

At DePaul I took HCI-511, “Accessibility and Design for Diverse Users,” and it was one of my favorite courses. During one class we heard from a panel of blind and low-vision individuals. One man spoke of the experience of walking into a meeting room and finding a place to sit down. Sighted people see the layout of the meeting room, pick an empty chair in the room and decide upon a path to take to it; this can be described as “image to point.” A blind person walks up to the doorway of the meeting room and must first listen to the ambient noise, and subsequently feel their way through in order to create a mental picture of the room, before ultimately arriving at an available chair; this can be described as “point to image.” This inversion of experiences blew me away; it introduced an entirely new way of thinking about design.

Principle 1: Equitable Use
Principle 2: Flexibility in Use
Principle 3: Simple and Intuitive Use
Principle 4: Perceptible Information
Principle 5: Tolerance for Error
Principle 6: Low Physical Effort
Principle 7: Size and Space for Approach and Use

This also got me interested in Ray Kurzweil, as his work in optical character recognition was instrumental in print-to-speech technology for the blind. (The singularity is near, my friends.)