Design for All or Universal Design and Braille – An
Inventory of Challenges
Gregor Strutz
Andere Augen e.V.
Berliner Straße 69
13189 Berlin
Germany
1 Out of the Niche!
“Out of the niche – into full life!” – the UN-Disability-Law-Convention cannot be
reduced to less. It demands an inclusive society, adjusting to the needs of
handicapped people and searching for new means and ways to add variety to
their lives.
But how is this going to work? The UN-Disability-Law-Convention also offers
approaches. Among many other topics they – for the first time – ask for a
“Design for All“. With this not only the needs of handicapped people are to be
fulfilled, but also – in the broadest sense – the needs of large population groups.
From the perspective of the UN this means: step away from a rehabilitation
design for handicapped people towards an inclusive design, in which people with
and without handicaps both feel comfortable and taken care of.
The European Institute for Design for All (EDAD) defines the matter as follows:
“Design for All is not only a philosophy, but outlines a design-process, aiming to
reach barrier-free access and availability for as many people as possible.” (cf.
EDAD, 2008)
So it is about a change of perspectives: Design, as a functional and aesthetic
component of any product as well as of a wide range of services, is no longer
mainly treated as a marketing instrument, the success of which is only measured
by sales figures. Design for All is the universal approach to consistently orient
towards the needs of the users. In doing so, the needs of handicapped people
are to be paid special attention to. Design solutions, which are based on the
needs of handicapped people and evoke the acceptance and demand of nonhandicapped people, would be the stable basis of an inclusive society.
This universal self-understanding ultimately makes the discussion, whether
Universal Design rather follows market-based interests and “Design for All”
rather a socio-political approach, redundant.
2 Design with or without Braille?
The topic of the World Congress Braille21 opens the question of the future role of
braille in Design for All.
First it is to be stated that embossed printing is hardly existent in the aesthetic
world of sighted people. And if it does exist, it can only be found if the
-1-
government made braille legally binding, i.e. in elevators and the writing on
medication packages.
Braille is – for sighted people – an exclusive code, fascinating a few, but not
being understood by most. Everyday contact with the writing of the blind by
sighted people is rare. And if it happens to be found, there is no relation
established with the familiar black writing of sighted people. But wherever
embossed printing cannot be substantially or functionally perceived, there can be
no involvement with the matter, let alone acceptance.
So how can braille become something common, become something naturally
belonging to everyday life?
Until today there are apparently neither sufficient statistical elicitations nor
profound investigations concerning this issue. We – that is a group of
communication experts, being professionally involved with the questions of the
freedom from barriers concerning the topic of seeing – therefore strongly depend
on our very own experiences.
We think: Inclusive design for blind people finds a higher degree of acceptance, if
we manage to also include the needs of visually handicapped people as well as
manage to offer complex solutions. If we succeed in pointing out the relationship
of the desires and emotional needs of blind and visually handicapped people with
the aesthetic world of sighted people, considerably bigger groups of people can
be reached and profit from the respective communication-solutions.
To illustrate this with an example: A packing or any user surface, concentrating,
clearly structured, on the most important information, combining the concise
typography with braille and abandoning colourful and blatant demeanour, is quite
likely to be chosen by customers, handicapped or not, who make conscious
decisions. Furthermore, if employed properly, braille is a haptic experience,
which can be an extra positive criterion for people who cannot read it at all or
have only very limited knowledge of it.
Unfortunately, there are still – to this very day – too many rehabilitation
products disregarding basic aesthetic rules, so that they, despite being principally
appropriate for non-handicapped people, are not chosen by them. These
products are therewith obstructing the development of inclusive design solutions.
From the perspective of the designer there is – in my eyes – no universal
solution for the preservation and the future of braille. To put this in a nutshell:
The future of braille beyond the community of blind people depends on functional
as well as aesthetic integration in design solutions for largest population groups.
This path is not an easy one.
How it could be mastered, I would like to briefly illustrate with the example of
the project “Andere Augen” – “Other Eyes”, developed by my comrades and
myself.
-2-
3 Setting a Good Example
In the year 2009 I – with the help of many interested people - have been able to
develop one of the first inclusively designed books in German on the basis of my
diploma project. It was our aim that blind and visually handicapped people as
well as people who are able to see can have an equal look at the same book.
The photo-read-touch-hear-book “Andere Augen” – “Other Eyes” is an illustrated
book, in which two handicapped people are portrayed. The – by us – protected
term “photo-read-touch-hear-book” stresses that the different sensory
perceptions of people are both equally addressed, contentwise and emotionally.
Because the viewers, no matter whether handicapped or non-handicapped, have
access to an equal amount of information and aesthetic feelings – visually,
verbally, haptically and audiovisually.
From the very beginning on we have placed high value on the illustrated book
having an artistic as well as technical quality and aesthetic, not only addressing
sighted people, but also being “heard and felt” by visually handicapped and blind
people. This means the braille texts are printed directly on the large-sized
photographs, the word-interviews with the portrayed were read onto a DAISY-CD
by an actress, the photos of the illustrated book were matched with atmospheric
picture descriptions – in large writing with high contrast and on the CD
respectively. The making of the book was an exciting search- and optimisationprocess. Embossed printing on already printed on paper brought many technical
challenges with it, just like the binding method. We have thereby collected many
experiences in terms of production-techniques, which we will surely apply in
further projects.
The very positive public reactions and feedback about the book, from the side of
handicapped as well as non-handicapped people, led us to the idea to extend the
content of the book to a barrier-free exhibition, which can be shown in different
places in Germany. With this, we wanted, on the one hand, to sensitise broader
circles of the public to the topic of visual handicaps and blindness to diminish
reservations and stigmatisation. On the other hand, it was about the question of
how to design a photo-exhibition, which also allows blind as well as severely
visually handicapped people an utmost independent visit of the exhibition.
The exhibition is composed of 35 large-sized photos, printed on highly matt
metal surfaces. Their colours are intense and therefore well visible for visually
handicapped people. The independent guided tour is realised via the application
of audio guides, having proved well in practice, that is the model Penfriend, as
well as tactile orientation-maps. Special furniture was developed for the
exhibition, allowing an utmost positive exhibition experience for people using
wheel chairs. Braille has a high functional meaning in the design of the
exhibition. Interested visitors can also perceive a half-an-hour TV-offer with a
sound film, in which the full project “Other Eyes” including its main actors in the
filming locations in Norway is presented.
The circulating exhibition “Other Eyes – An Exhibition about Seeing” was shown
as a pilot exhibition in the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in Berlin
in 2009, was hosted for a period of three months by the Landtag of Thuringia
and will be open for the public from October this year on in Nuremberg. Owed to
the association “Other Eyes” the exhibition is largely free of charge. Resulting
-3-
from the adjustment of the exhibition to the local conditions respectively we are
moreover continuing to develop technical means, such as the guiding system for
blind people, the exhibition furniture for handicapped people as well as didactic
means for the information of the public. This exciting task gives us many
interesting impulses, which we will be able to use for other design-applications in
the sense of “Design for All”.
4 Conclusion
1. “Design for All” and the concrete application in the sense of Universal Design
respectively open great chances for profound developments in society, which
open equal participation possibilities for handicapped as well as non-handicapped
people. But inclusive design is just a means to an end.
2. Inclusive design demands professionalism. It only occurs if designers begin to
work inclusively. This demands a change of perspective on needs, orienting
towards the weakest.
3. Handicapped people and their representatives have to phrase concrete
demands and requests when dealing with the designers, as they should aim at a
cooperative development.
4. More important than demanding norms and political regulations is it to create
standard forming examples together.
5. Associations for handicapped people should enforce their profile as promoters
and demanders towards politics and economy.
6. Inclusive design-solutions find acceptance within society if we manage to
combine the aesthetic world of blind and visually handicapped people with the
one of sighted people.
-4-