Each year, five to seven percent of U.S. adults have serious mental illnesses, which commonly include social phobia, major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), general anxiety, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Universal Design (UD) is an approach to design that increases the potential for developing a better quality of life for a wide range of individuals. It is a design process that enables and empowers a diverse population by improving human performance, health and wellness, and social participation (Steinfeld and Maisel, 2012). It creates products, systems, and environments to be as usable as possible by as many people as possible regardless of age, ability or situation.
