Universal Design Handbook
DESIGN RESEARCH NEWS, Volume 7 Number 3 Digital Newsletter of the Design Research Societyby Cherie Lebbon, Research Fellow, Helen Hamlyn Research Centre, Royal College of Art, LondonUniversal Design handbook, Wolfgang F.E. Preiser, Editor in Chief and Elaine Ostroff, Senior Editor, McGraw-HillNot long before Christmas I received a copy of Universal Design Handbook.  On first inspection I thought it was going to make a great door stop, or hold back for the overflowing collection papers and pamphlets accumulating on my shelves.  However, after only a couple of months I already find that it is regularly dipped into.  This massive document is a fantastic and fascinating resource for researchers who are interested in the subject of universal and inclusive design and something of this type has been long awaited by the design research community.  It also provides a good resource for those who wish to bring universal deesign into their design teaching, giving them sound information on which to base any teaching program.This is probably the most comprehensive reference work on universal design to date.  It brings together writings from an international panel of experts in the field, each being thoroughly referenced and providing an excellent entry point for further research.  The book, with its 69 international contributions, addresses a wide selection of universal design projects that range from an office work station, to interior architecture, buildings, landscape and all the way to parks and wilderness areas.  It also includes some chapters that relate to product design such as the one on universal design in automobile design.  The research questions, methodologies and findings presented are focused on how universally designed products and environments can be created to be usable by most people, regardless of ability/disability, health, gender, ethnicity, or cultural context.Though the emphasis is on the application of universal design in the build environment, there is a mass of material that is pertinent to anyone researching or teaching universal or inclusive design.  The fact that it covers a wide set of issues across the various design communities is especially useful as it helps designers and researchers place their own practice and interests in context with approaches in other design fields.In my role as a researcher of inclusive design I have found each contribution to hold something of relevance, which has added to my body of knowledge and contributed to my own research activities.  As a design teacher I have been able to draw on the experience of others in framing my own teaching programme, the parts 7 and 8 on education and case studies being particularly useful.  And as a practising designer I have been very interested to compare my own experiences with those of others as outlined in Part 6.I am sure that in the USA the additional CDROM is also very useful, enabling readers to access and understand the laws that have driven some of the universal design activities to date.  Regrettably there is no equivalent disk for European, UK, Japanese or other country's legislation.I would not recommend the book as an introductory document on universal design as it would overwhelm the unitiated.  It is, however, very comprehensive and in bringing together the work of the major researchers gives access to this essential information to a much wider audience than that which regularly participates in the universal design dialogue. (Design Research News2002-03-01)