A decade of inclusive design: 2005-2006

2005

This was the year when Pearson Matthews created the Challenge-winning Clevername™ sticking plaster for one-handed use, thus proving that product designers could beat their visual communications counterparts in the presentation stakes and come up with a killer concept to boot. The design team redesigned the way the plaster is folded and packed, creating tabs that protrude from the packaging. This allows the plaster to be accessed directly and positioned on the wound with one hand. By using the same manufacturing techniques as the conventional plaster, this solution added significant functional benefit without increasing cost. Also in 2005/ Corporate Edge developed a toolkit to help the many dyslexics in the creative industries to take briefs, capture ideas and communicate with clients; Lacock Gullam was commended for its radical redesign of the bus shelter; Rodd Design rethought the vacuum cleaner in the form of the Housemate; and Enterprise IG proposed Oop, a marque to indicate that a product, service or environment has been designed with excluded people in mind.

2006

One measure of the DBA Inclusive Design Challenge’s effectiveness is the determination of the design teams to take their ideas to market. Wire Design’s Consider™ project, the 2006 winner, presented a creative software tool that replicates common eye conditions, so that graphic designers and their clients can view their work through the eyes of different visually-impaired audiences and thereby improve their designs. This would later be developed into Beyond Big Type, a best-practice toolkit that would go on to win the Sappi European Ideas that Matter award in October 2009. A vibrant and varied shortlist included Adecco’s Infood, a graphic system to enable us to determine the ingredients of any food product, and Coley Porter Bell used simple greetings card technology to create Chatterpack to allow packaging to talk back, while Felton Communication designed a central online resource for disabled people looking for training or employment. The two product concepts were Matter’s lightweight, inclusive fire extinguisher, appropriately named Houdini, and Wood & Wood’s combination suitcase and mobility aid, called Caddy.