Usability-NET

Project timeframe
Ongoing
Research area
Design Practice
Amount awarded
£5,960
Funder ID
The Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) + Teaching Innovation Award

Project leader: Dr George Torrens

This free resource is to provide new product and service developers and industrial designers with the methods and heuristics to more effectively design and develop assistive technology (AT) products or services. The resources are presented from the viewpoint of industrial design, with an emphasis on delivering social value. The approach is a user-centred and evidence based design process. This is reflected in the format of the resources.

This resource should be used in conjunction with other resources to combine the best of Industrial design methods and those from business management, Human Factors, Engineering design and Materials selection. Initially, the resource was focused on signposting design students to relevant webpages and resources that would help them gain a better understanding of people with disabilities and the products they used. Between 1998 and 2014 students produced webpages for the resource on their findings, applying a user-centred approach to new product development.

In 2015 the resource was revised, shifting the focus of the website from signposting to AT products, businesses and associated Charitable organisations to the research and design methods that underpinned a new approach to user-centred design of AT products. The resource is now a series of research methods, design methods and design heuristics that are grouped into phases of a design process. The process is based on United Kingdom standards and a consensus of conventions. The grouping of methods and heuristics follows the Loughborough User-Centred Assistive Technology (LUCAT) design process.