85502 Chap.5 Access, Disability and Inclusive Design
Access, Disability and Inclusive Design
Who is the world designed for?
Week 5 examines design through inclusion, accessibility and (dis)ability, tracing accessibility in design from the 1960s to now, and the myth of the “universal man” that shaped modern design.
Three models
The required introduction by Guffey and Williamson contrasts medical, social and design models of disability, and the lecture’s image of a 1970s curb-cut protest shows disabled people acting as designers and activists.
Formal and semiotic analysis
The tutorial introduces the two linked methods you will use again in Assessment 2. Every designer makes assumptions about bodies.
This week trains you to see those assumptions and to treat disabled people as experts and designers, not only as users.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Inclusion, accessibility and (dis)ability since the 1960s
- 02
The myth of the universal man
- 03
Medical, social and design models of disability
- 04
Universal design and inclusive design
- 05
Curb cuts as protest and as design
- 06
Formal analysis of an artefact
- 07
Semiotic analysis of signs and symbols
- 08
Reading Barthes as a model of analysis
Worked example · free
Analyse a public toilet sign formally, then semiotically
- 1Formal: note the colour, the simplified figure shapes, their scale on the panel and the material of the sign.
- 1Formal: note how the pictograms are arranged and which figure, if any, is set apart from the others.
- 1Semiotic: ask what each pictogram assumes about bodies, gender and the viewer’s knowledge.
- 1Semiotic: ask who these associations include or exclude, one of the Week 5 prompts.
- 1Model: if your reading locates the barrier in the building rather than the person, it is using the social model.
Key terms
- Social model of disability
- The view that disability is defined and perpetuated by society, through barriers, policies and institutions.
- Medical model of disability
- The view that disability is a pathology inside an individual body, to be treated or cured.
- Inclusive design
- Design that tries to serve the widest practical range of people without special adaptations.
- Semiotic analysis
- Analysis of what an artefact signifies culturally and symbolically, and for whom.
Access, Disability and Inclusive Design FAQ
What is the universal man in design history?
It is the myth of a single standard body that much modern design assumed. The Week 5 lecture introduces it and its lasting influence on design practice, and notes it prepares the ground for the modernism lecture in Week 6. Designing for one imagined average leaves many people at the edges.
How is universal design different from inclusive design?
Guffey and Williamson report that the architect Ronald Mace coined universal design in 1985 for design that serves disabled and non-disabled users without special concessions. Inclusive design surfaced in Europe in the 1990s and scaled back the universal ambition, looking for specific answers to carefully identified problems.
What is the difference between formal and semiotic analysis?
Formal analysis observes the artefact: line, shape, colour, material, scale, function and how it was made. Semiotic analysis asks what those features signify, what associations they carry and for whom. The Week 5 Canvas page says the two are linked and cannot be done independently of each other.
What are the Week 5 readings?
Two required chapters: Sara Hendren’s Who is the Built Environment For? from What can a body do?, and Guffey and Williamson’s introduction to Making Disability Modern. Recommended extras are a podcast interview with Hendren and Guffey’s book Designing disability, on symbols, space and society.
Should I choose Design and Access for Assessment 1?
Choose it if you can bring evidence beyond the lecture, such as a building, sign or product you know well. The brief strongly recommends reading ahead early if you pick Week 5, because its lecture falls in the same week the Weekly Response is due, leaving little time after the class itself.
Assessment move
Walk through one building you use every week and photograph three design features that include or exclude, then analyse one formally and semiotically in your journal. Learn the three models of disability as a table you can redraw. If Week 5 is your Assessment 1 lens, read ahead early as the brief recommends, and use your own encounter with the built world as evidence alongside the readings.
Read the Barthes extract on the new Citroën that the Canvas page annotates, and mark where formal description turns into semiotic reading.
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