ABSTRACT
Universal design (UD) practices are gaining importance in products design. Because there have been no established universal design methods, designers often tend to use their own experiences and intuition in extracting problems and creating new universal designs. In view of these situations, the Ergo-Design Technical Group of the Japan Ergonomics Society (EDTG/JES) organized a working group for proposing integrated UD methods that could be used by designers. This working group developed new practical UD guidelines together with the members of EDTG/JES and collaborators including ergonomics experts in universities and relevant industrial designers working in the private sectors. The working group utilized various opportunities for discussing the UD needs such as the annual conferences of the Society and annual conferences of Kantoh District (Tokyo area) chapter of the Society, as well as regular and special seminars organized by the Ergo-Design Technical Group. The working group thus examined proposals of the members for practical UD guidelines. This chapter describes the new guidelines including the basic design principles and the detailed methods for accomplishing new designs meeting the requirements of the proposed guidelines.
