By Päivi Tahkokallio, Design Historian, Vice-president of EIDD. Project Manager,ILSE®project, Stakes, Finland

Mission impossible, Design for All. There is no Design for All, no existe, non esiste. Repeating the question presented in the Nokia article in the last issue of Crisp & Clear (p. 15), by Nokia's Director of User Interfaces, Christian Lindholm: "Could you imagine a pair of shoes being designed in such way that everybody would want to wear them?"

No, I could not. And more to the point, what has this question to do with Design for All? Very little, but then, the intentionally built-in answer carries a typical misunderstanding of the concept. Design for All was never meant to be a one-size-fits-all T-shirt.

Design for All is an ethically conscious approach to design, a carrier of the basic human principle of equality and respect of individuals’ qualities. So users with long toes, or with exceptionally gigantic feet, or with toes missing, should have shoes, shoes that cater for their needs and aspirations and minimal or crazy or eccentric or whatever-you-like lifestyles. Shoes for all, but with respect for individuals’ needs and choices of lifestyle.

That makes mission more possible, but by no means less demanding. To design for all translates into designing for individuals, every one of us a carrier of individual interpretations of functionality, aesthetics and ethics. The challenge for the producer is to be aware of the strengthening of the rôle played by the user, to know how demanding users’ needs can be translated into quality in products and services. The ultimate challenge is to turn this into successful business.

ILSE®, which stands for Independent Living Solutions for Everybody, is a joint Finnish effort of STAKES, The National R&D Centre for Welfare and Health and Finpro, an expert organisation that services Finnish companies’ foreign trade requirements. The aim of the project is to support innovative, mainstream companies in their efforts to improve their understanding of users and to develop competitive Design for All solutions for the international market. One key element comprises importing the latest knowledge from welfare and social research, from marketing and export and from design into a common platform, so that it becomes easy for manufacturers and service providers in both the private and the public sector to access.

The experience accumulated by STAKES as an R&D Centre for Welfare and Health together with Finpro's expertise on marketing and export, supported by the innovative design knowledge from within the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, provides a huge interactive knowledge platform on Design for All for the companies participating in the ILSE® project. But, even so, the platform would be no more than a mere playground of ideas were there no companies who are motivated to commit themselves to a long-term learning process.

The absolutely vital pre-requisite for the success of Design for All as a design approach is to develop tools that are accessible, easy to use and cost-effective for companies. One of the major stumbling-blocks in the product development process in general is still involving users in the process. An inspiring, challenging possibility to improve this situation is the Design for All Commitment Label Project, whose major pilot currently groups together 25 companies in Catalonia, in Spain.

ILSE® in Finland has accepted the challenge and is taking steps to adapt the concept to the Finnish business environment. This adaptation is to be undertaken by a leading international consultancy with extensive expertise in managing change in company cultures, with expert support from Catalonia. The adaptation process will be completed by April 2001 and will soon be followed by the establishment of the pilot group of 20 Finnish companies, to analyse the state of the art of their Design for All knowledge and identify their individual learning objectives.

The additional value being brought to the Commitment Label project by the Finnish partners is the rôle played by international marketing as one of the key success factors from the very first phase of a product’s development. As a long-term strategy, the Commitment Label process will have a two-tier effect on these companies; firstly, it will provide practical Design for All tools to be used in the product development process by design, technology and marketing professionals, while secondly, it will provide the company with a strategic accessibility toolkit, for both the domestic and export markets.

Do you remember the film, "Dead Poets Society", where Robin Williams played John Keating, the English teacher with a deep love of poetry? He was committed to sharing his passion and understanding with his students, sometimes using methods that were anything but approved by the boarding school’s conventional staff. In one of the scenes, John Keating suddenly jumped on his desk, looking at the boys, his attentive audience, saying: "Why do I stand here? I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way." He was reminding the boys that whenever they think they know something, they have to remember to change perspective and check again.

This is in the very core of Design for All: an open mind and a commitment to know more, to question everything around us. When you as a professional believe you have made it, jump up on the table and take a fresh look at your audience – the users – and cross-check with them. Mission possible.

Published in Crisp & Clear No. 4, December 2000