As an interaction designer, our biggest goal is to make the product available to all users as much as possible. Through reading the fourth chapter of the book “Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education”. I learned that if a design can be used by the disabled, it can be used by all. The core idea of universal design is: to treat everyone as people with different levels of abilities, that is, people’s abilities are limited, people have different abilities, and they have different abilities in different environments. The extensive use of universal design originated from the famous American architect Ronald L. Mace. The universal design needs to be aware of needs and the market, and provide users with clear and easy-to-understand methods. As a design method, universal design has become a research hotspot in the field of human-computer interaction in recent years. They have the same concept and background, that is, their goal is to analyze from the two levels of “usability” and “user experience”, focusing on the people-oriented user needs. I think universal design can be said to be the origin of interaction design, and the same concept is still used by designers many years later.
Bibliography
Dolmage, J., 2017. Academic Ableism: Disability And Higher Education. 1st ed. Ann Arbor [Michigan]: University of Michigan Press.
Projects.ncsu.edu. 2008. Center For Universal Design NCSU – About The Center – Ronald L. Mace. [online] Available at: <https://projects.ncsu.edu/ncsu/design/cud/about_us/usronmace.htm> [Accessed 15 September 2020].
Rose, D., 2001. Universal Design for Learning. Journal of Special Education Technology, 16(4), pp.64-67.
Nesmith, M., 2016. Why We Need Universal Design. [online] Youtube. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVdPNWMGyZY> [Accessed 15 September 2020].
The Interaction Design Foundation. n.d. Universal Design. [online] Available at: <https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/universal-design> [Accessed 15 September 2020].
