The document discusses universal/inclusive design (UD) as a practice aimed at creating products and environments usable by everyone, emphasizing principles such as equitable use and flexibility. It critiques existing UD frameworks for their limitations, including lack of user involvement and challenges in application across diverse contexts. The author proposes further exploration of the ethical considerations and philosophical implications surrounding UD, particularly concerning marginalized communities and the capability approach.

1. Universal/Inclusive Design
Towards a More Thorough
Ethical and Theoretical Understanding
Ilse Oosterlaken, 4 June 2014
Colloquium Philosophy Section TU Delft

2. Questions for You
• Does this seems like the sort of topic which is
innovative & exciting enough for a VENI project?
• Which more specific / other research questions
and approaches can you think of?
• Suggestions for focusing on specific domains or
cases?
• Whom should I talk to in the process of further
developing this idea into a proposal?
• If not for a VENI proposal – is anyone else
interested in developing a joint proposal for
another grand scheme?

3. Universal/Inclusive Design:
The Paradigm Case

4. UD as
Established Design Practice (I)

5. UD as
Established Design Practice (II)

6. Definition of UD
“….design for human diversity, social inclusion,
and equality” (Design for All Europe, 2008)
“The design of products and environments to be
usable by all people, to the greatest extent
possible, without the need for adaptation or
specialized design” (Mace, 1985)

7. The Alternative:
Assistive or Adaptable Technology
• Assistive: technologies designed to meet
characteristics/needs of people with specific disabilities
• Adaptable: modification of or add-ons to standard design
for purpose of making it usable by certain individuals
Steinfeild & Maisel (2012) about assistive technologies:
• “High rates of abandonment by unsatisfied end users”
o change in user needs & priorities
o poor device procurement & performance
o lack of consideration of user opinion
• Lack of attention for contextual embedding and training
• “Fears about acceptance, embarrassment, or attracting
unwanted attention”

8. The Principles of UD
Connell et all 1997; Story 1998;
Steinfeld & Maisel 2012)
1. Equitable use. The design
does not disadvantage or
stigmatize any group of users
2. Flexibility in use. The design
accommodates a wide range of
individual preferences and
abilities
3. Simple and intuitive use
4.Perceptible information
5.Tolerance for error
6.Low physical effort
7.Size and space for approach
and use
Erlandson (2008)
1.Ergonomically sound
2.Perceptible
3.Cognitively sound
4.Flexible
5.Error-managed
(proofed)
6.Efficient
7.Stable and predictable
8.Equitable

9. Criticism on the Principles of UD
• Fit with needs in the field  different versions arose
• The issue of appearance  more than just functional benefits (e.g.
appearance  stigmatization)
• Language  Do not translate well into other languages
• Goals: lack clarity of purpose; equitable in use ( social justice,
“flexibility in use” ( design strategy), rest: human performance .
• Scope - What about health promotion, disease prevention, social
interaction, friendship formation, cultural diversity?
• Fit with context: constraints imposed by design & implementation
context.
• Narrow focus on personal empowerment –personalization /
customization  broader diversity issues and social identity.
• Difficulty for benchmarking - No metrics or standards, terminology is
not amenable to benchmarking & developing best practices.
• Lack of an evidence base
(Steinfeld & Maisel, 2012)

10. A Key Challenge for UD
Example: design of an ATM (Keates, forthcoming)
•A user in a wheelchair: keypad/screen at a lower height 
reachable and visible from a seated position
•Someone with a visual impairment: keypad/screen closer to
their eye-level  seen more easily from standing position
Challenge acknowledged –
but have the implications
been fully driven through?
For example, architectural
design for:
•The visually impaired
•People with autism

11. Which Users Does UD Serve?
Which Trade-Offs are Made?
“Redirecting design towards the needs of those
marginalized by specific physical conditions means
other priorities go unmet. The implication that such
trade-offs are not necessary —that singular
[universally designed] systems can account for all
needs— risks depoliticizing inherently political design
questions about whose interests should be accounted
for and how.”
(Nieusma, 2004)

12. Universal Design
= Good Design?
• “…no longer talk about the specific needs of certain
categories of people, but talk about human functioning. We
should look at every aspect of human functioning, without
categorizing […] Accessibility will lose its stigma and become
a mainstream issue. We won’t need terms like Design for All
or Universal Design anymore. We will only refer to good
design and bad design.” (future vision of the European Concept for
Accessibility Network, 2001, as quoted by Erlandson 2008)
• Chair at Include 2009 Conference: “I’d like to see the crap
design being inclusive”. One of many “fierce” reactions from
the audience: “If crap design can be inclusive design, what
does that mean for what we mean by inclusive design?” (as
reported by Helighen & Bianchin, 2010)

13. Human Diversity in
Philosophy of Technical Artefacts
• Houkes-Vermaas theory of the nature of technical artefacts:
o “designers primarily aim at aiding prospective users to realize their
goals” (Vermaas & Houkes 2006)
o Use plan central rather than artefact. Per definition assumes
certain user characteristics
o “If a designer wants to make his design as inclusive or universal as
possible, belief consistency makes good designing a considerable
challenge” (Houkes & Vermaas 2010)
• Franssen’s hierarchy of normative facts
o ‘Good’ design: always relative to user assumed in the use plan
(problem many designers: assume ‘average’ user / one like them)
o Hierarchy of normative facts, e.g. x is a K; x is a poor/good K; x
makes a poor/good K; x is a malfunctioning K
o Extension needed to deal with evaluation UD: x is an
(in)appropriate K for p in C (Oosterlaken 2012)

14. Gap: Lack of
Theoretical Reflection on UD
“While UD has intuitive appeal, and has quickly gained global reach,
even totemic status, there has been little or no evaluation of its
underlying principles and its theoretical and conceptual content”
Three issues (Imrie, 2012)
1.“Belief in the significance of technology”; too little attention for
social embedding/interaction as important for outcomes (and what
about non-technical solutions?)
2.“Defence of universalism” / “ambivalence towards
particularism”; paradoxically, an abstract, stereotype picture of
human diversity; narrow philosophical anthropology; user as remote
figure / non-involvement users
3.“Propagation of [UD through] market discourses”; risk of
selective response to needs disabled people depending on
costs/profit, weakening of rights discourse

15. UD & the Capability Approach
• In common: awareness of human diversity
• Relation “technical artefacts – human capabilities” depends on
personal conversion factors (UD: way to anticipate these
different factors & deal with them)
• Way to evaluate ‘succes’ of UD effort. Brings into play factors of
cultural and social embedding of the universally designed
artefact – or anything which may influence achieving the
intended capability expansion.
• Starting from capabilities as ultimate ends leads to openness to
different means. Are assistive or adaptable technologies
sometimes better? Or non-technical interventions?

16. Intermezzo:
Types & Levels of Capabilities
(A) capability to join timber & (B) capability to build a house
A is one CONSTITUTIVE ELEMENT of B?
(A) capability to be healthy & (B) capability for affiliation.
A is MEANS to B?
(A) capability to own a house & (B) capability to be sheltered in a
safe way and protected from the elements
A is SPECIFIC INSTANTIATION of B? (A sufficient for B)
(A) capability to read the newspapers & (B) capability to read
A is a FURTHER SPECIFICATION of B? Or B is capacity that
contributes to capability A?
Might it make sense to apply something like ‘functional
decomposition’ to the higher-level, intrinsically valuable
capabilities?

17. Some Possible
Research Questions
• Which conception of disability is implicitly present in the UD
movement, and does the CA offer a better conception?
• How should the aim / ‘success’ be defined and assessed in
UD?
• Does there exist any moral obligation to strive for UD in a
market setting, and if so – under which conditions?
• Given that full universal design is hardly realistically possible -
How do / should universal designers decide on which groups to
include?
• Is there indeed a convincing moral reason – such as preventing
stigmatization - to always prefer UD, rather than “adaptation or
specialized design”?

18. Empirical Component?
• Ethical parallel research with a number of on-going UD
projects?
• Case studies of a number of already finished & implemented
UD projects?
• Analysis of dominant UD literature & texts of organizations
promoting UD?