Disability Distribution Modeling for Universal Product Design

Abstract

Universal Design can be applied to product design as a means of increasing accessibility and usability of the product by the largest number of users possible. Product designers may tend to consider design attributes of a product line individually; however, it is not uncommon for an individual user to have several impairments affecting the ability to interact with individual product attributes. In fact, disability follows a continuum of severity and spans multiple attributes; two aspects that are particularly difficult to plan for in product design. Thus, we present a theoretical and experimental basis for designing universal products to (1) consider a multi-phased approach to measure the multi-attribute nature of disability for a specific disease population, (2) develop and execute a mathematical model relating disability attributes to product design, and (3) validate the model through product testing.