Accessible design boost at Bolton Institute

Bolton Institute has been awarded £143 000 in research funding for an inclusive design project that aims to tap into the skills and creative talents of disabled people.

Making Inclusive Design Accessible and Successful will run for 18 months. Students on product design courses at the institute will be joined by 40 disabled people, in an attempt to create more accessible product designs.

Brian Pederson, project leader at Bolton Institute, says that through working together the students will create ‘products that can be used by the vast majority.’

According to Pederson, the project also aims to help disabled students improve their employment prospects, while contributing to the enhancement of the inclusive design ethos that runs through the institute.

‘In return for their creativity and imagination, students will benefit from learning new skills and can use these to improve their existing careers,’ he explains.

The institute anticipates that disabled students will bring ideas about product enhancements as well as new product requirements to the course.

‘People enter a different world when they become disabled,’ explains Pederson. ‘They find there are many modern products they can’t use and instead they invent and create different ways of dealing with the world.’