Building an online community to share experiences and views on assistive equipment, crowdsourcing its development to produce functional, desirable products that support independent living.

1. Enabled by Design
Building an online community to share
experiences and views on assistive
equipment, crowdsourcing its development
to produce functional, desirable products that
support independent living.

2. The big picture
The big picture
www.enabledbydesign.org

3. Features, needs, benefits and
efficiencies
Features – how does the project work?
• Challenging current provision of assistive
equipment
• Giving users a much needed neutral
platform for their views on assistive
equipment to be heard
• Using social technology and the web to
establish Enabled by Design in a traditionally
closed market, helping to raise profile and
generate discussion
Efficiencies generated by our project:
• Improved equipment assessment, needs
analysis and provision processes
• Helping users to choose and use equipment
that is suited to them from the outset, leading
to longer usage, greater confidence and levels
of satisfaction
• Supporting people to choose equipment that
can help to increase independence and
improve safety, reducing need for additional
support and risk of hospital admission
Benefits of our project:
• Meeting the needs listed below
• Providing support, including to friends,
family, carers, through community platform
• Helping to reduce level of isolation
experienced due to changes in
health/circumstances and the need to use
assistive equipment
Needs our project meets:
• Raising awareness that assistive equipment
provision needs to change by involving
users at all stages, as well as offering value
for money and choice
• Giving users a much needed voice
• Signposting people to well designed
products that support independent living

4. Measures of our success
1. Feedback, media coverage and expansion
of community
2. Building reputation as an authority on
assistive equipment, user engagement
and social media
3. Government bodies and manufacturers
interested in engaging with Enabled by
Design’s community to further develop
assistive equipment products and services

5. The support we need
1. Access to Government bodies including
commissioners for one-to-one discussions
about how we might be able to work
together
2. Financial investment to help scale up our
efforts
3. Help in finding potential sources of further
funding and low cost ways of building our
capacity