Changing Perceptions in Style
What is universal design?
As a disabled beauty and style blogger I’m always advocating for inclusivity within both the fashion and beauty industry for my community.
Lately I’ve been writing a lot of journalistic pieces and giving interviews where I’ve spoken about the concept of “universal design”.
Universal design is growing in popularity, with more brands creating packaged goods adopting universal design techniques to make their products widely accessible.
But, a lot of people I’ve spoken to aren’t familiar with this term and don’t know what it means.
So today I’m going to be breaking it down and sharing everything you need to know about universal design.
When we talk about disability inclusivity there are 2 terms you will hear one is accessible design and the other is universal design.
Let’s start off with what accessible design is or anyone who isn’t quite sure.
Accessible design is about adapting a product specifically to meet the needs of a particular group of people, particularly disabled people.
This could be anything from adding hearing loops in shops for hearing aid users or adding tactile markers on steps for blind and low vision people.
It is the designing of something with the overall goal to make something usable for as many people as possible. The aim of universal design is a make something that fits all or as many people as possible as opposed to just a few.
An example would be making a building doorway large enough for people with various wheelchairs, mobility aims and pushchairs to fit through.
The major difference between universal design and accessible design is who it benefits. Accessible design tends to fit a niche few, whereas universal design fits a wider majority.
An example would be a product that includes braille, only 10% of the sight loss community read braille. So, let’s say a haircare brand wanted to add braille to their shampoo and conditioner bottles for blind people to tell them apart.
But as I’ve just mentioned only a small group of people from the sight loss community read braille. So, this wouldn’t be accessible to all of us.
Whereas, with universal design a product could be made with tactile symbols to tell different bottles apart. This would be more widely accessible because anyone could learn to memorise this symbol without having to know braille.
One brand who has done just that is haircare brand Herbal Essences, who included raised striped on their shampoo bottles and raised circles on their conditioner bottles to improve accessibility for their low vision customers.
Ultimately accessible design aims to be specific and targeted. Whereas universal design seeks to be more broad.
This is subjective, but ultimately both have their benefits. There will always be people with specific needs that only accessible design can accommodate.
In fashion particularly, accessible design is probably more of a needed approach when it comes to people with disabilities that impact their physical anatomy. Regular high street clothes may not fit their unique needs and so that’s where accessible design will play a big part in their lives.
But there are certain spaces, particularly where product design is concerned where the concept of universal design is arising more and more into the conversation. Ultimately the more widely inclusive a product is, the better. Which is why universal design is growing increasingly in popularity. Because it can accommodate a lot of people as opposed to a select few.
It’s also a very desirable concept for a lot of brands, if they can implement simple, cost effective methods to improve access that would benefit the widest proportion of people that is probably going to tip the scale for them.
It doesn’t just benefit disabled people, it benefits so many other people from different backgrounds.
Let’s take the tactile symbol example again. Using a tactile symbol instead of braille would mean that people who speak a different language or who have dyslexia would also be able to benefit from a feature like this.
There will always be a place for accessible design, there will always be people with specific needs, body types and abilities. Who’s needs will be chiefly met by accessible design.
But, there is a growing space in the industries I advocate for for more products that are created with universal design in mind.
This year PAC Global launched their Universal Design awards which is the first year running and it saw brands both big and small taking part. One of my recent features Victoria Watts (founder of VictoriaLand Beauty) won an award for her innovative tactile symbol system.
Universal design is a growing enterprise and it will continue to grow as more brands begin to implement this into their design strategies.
In short, universal design is here to stay and as a disabled person I couldn’t be happier about it.
So, now you know what universal design, let me know in the comments what your thoughts are.
With love x
