A capacity crowd...

The DBA Design Challenge 2001
innovation through inclusive design

6 December 2001

Once again, an audience of 240 filled the Upper Gulbenkian Gallery of the Royal College of Art (RCA) to hear five of the UK's leading design consultancies present their visions of an inclusive future at the DBA Design Challenge 2001. This annual event is organised by the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre in collaboration with the Design Business Association (DBA). Details of last year's event are available here.
 

Mobospace by BDG McColl

This year Alloy, BDG McColl, Imagination, Marketplace and SiebertHead were competing for the Inclusive Design Award with projects ranging from packaging to product, workplace and environmental design. The five shortlisted design teams worked, often in their free time, to develop their concepts over two months, drawing on the expertise of consumers with a range of sensory and physical disabilities.

The event was introduced by Lord Snowdon, Provost of the RCA who said: "Everyone deserves good design but there are so many inadequate products and services for young people with disabilities. These need to be redesigned and reinvented, with flair and skill, if these people are to enjoy the quality of life that we take for granted."

Roger Coleman, Director of the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre chaired the event and introduced Dr Ken Poulter, Director of Small Business Services at the DTI, who made the keynote speech. Other speakers included Julian Cobbledick of the British Healthcare Trades Association and Matt Brown who spoke on behalf of the users. Paul Priestman, Chair of the DBA presented the award.
 

Touch me, Feel me, Squeeze me
by SiebertHead

The Projects

BDG McColl, a major workplace design consultancy, worked with visually and mobility impaired users to develop Mobospace - a flexible community-based information/demonstration/training and social facility run by disabled people.

Marketplace, one of the UK's leading independent brand consultancies proposed Re:mind® - a simple-to-use device that could help us to organise our lives, remind us of essential things and help those with early dementia remain independent and in touch with those that matter.

SiebertHead, a packaging specialist, were advised by an expert group of young disabled people on Touch me, Feel me, Squeeze me, their project to develop new configurations of user-friendly packaging for toiletries that would make grooming a pleasure, not a pain.

Re:mind by Marketplace

Alloy, an award-winning employee-owned consultancy established in l999 presented Kettlesense, their innovative redesign of the most heavily used appliance in the home. It was praised by judges for the way it had effectively identified and resolved all the key factors in kettle design including that of affordability. Not only that, but the designers had shown the courage to throw out the conventional kettle concept and look for a more radical solution that could meet the needs of the broadest range of users.

Imagination presented Inspiration Park, an all-weather concept developed with the expert input of visually, cognitively and mobility impaired users. The judges liked the wealth of details - high-sided banks to cut traffic noise, a roofed park, water features, the potential branding and sponsorship ideas, and the openness and user-friendliness that marked it out as genuinely inclusive. The evidence of user group involvement at every stage of the project was reflected most convincingly in the final idea. David Constantine, who is a wheelchair user, remarked: "I could see myself using that all the year - something I cannot do with conventional parks. The idea was come in".
 

Kettlesense by Alloy

Imagination won the award, with Alloy's Kettlesense coming a close second. In accepting the award on behalf of the Imagination team, Creative Director Adrian Caddy remarked: "This is the most important award we have won. The challenge of designing inclusively is often completely overlooked by clients and their designers. We all encounter some form of disability in our lives, so it is essential that we strive for solutions that are useful and desirable to all."

"We were forced to think and work very differently from our usual practice. The insights that emerged from the user group and the resulting ideas were a result of a co-operative exchange of viewpoints from some very inspiring people."

Roger Coleman summed up: "What tonight's presentations demonstrate is that through empathy and engagement, not just with the needs and capabilities of the user groups, but with their aspirations and the texture of their everyday lives, designers can focus their creativity on the kind of life enhancing solutions and innovations that people want and need - ones that can replace the stigmatising aids and adaptations that undermine, rather than enhance independence. These are the sorts of products and services that older and disabled people want, and that the UK's innovative small businesses should lead in producing if they are to survive in an increasingly global marketplace."

Inspiration park by Imagination

The judges were Roger Coleman, Director of the HHRC; Lavinia Culverhouse, Director of Designhouse and the DBA; David Constantine, Director of Motivation; Malcolm Johnston, Head of the Design for Ability Unit at Central St Martin's College and a Board member of the UK Institute for Inclusive Design; Irene McAra-McWilliam, Professor of Interaction Design at the RCA; and David Yelding, Director of RICABILITY. Expert users were drawn from a range of organisations including Arthritis Care, Different Strokes, the Foundation for Assistive Technology and the British Computer Association of the Blind.

Download a full, edited transcript of the event (Rich Text Format, 144K)