Contributing to health promotion, avoidance of disease and protection from hazards
The City of New York has an extensive initiative focused on improving pedestrian and bicycle travel. Using simple and inexpensive strategies like painting and planters, hundreds of streets are being transformed to provide safer bicycling opportunities and passive recreation sites. The photograph shows an improvement on the West Side in midtown with a bike lane, enlarged sidewalk, and planters. The initiative is designed to encourage walking and bicycling and outdoor recreation by improving both safety of the environment and streetscape amenities.
The photograph shows a waterfront redevelopment project in Malmo that created a sustainable community with mixed uses. A pedestrian promenade has sitting and socializing spaces all along the waterfront side. On the other side of the promenade, mid-rise residential buildings are located with stores, restaurants and offices on the ground floor, giving residents and visitors many reasons to frequent the promenade. Housing in the district includes residential opportunities for many different types of households and mixed incomes.
Incorporating opportunities for choice and the expression of individual preferences
The iStore introduced a new dimension to personal computing. By developing a simple and intuitive way to find, purchase, and install applications, individuals can easily personalize their devices with the tools, entertainment, and communication systems that they value. The screen grid and colorful icon interface features uses familiar models of the candy box and bento box to organize one’s applications in a manner that makes sense to the individual. The form of the iPhone and iPad readily accept a wide range of third party cases for personalization of the outside, as well to address both function and presentation of self.
Incorporating opportunities for choice and the expression of individual preferences
The Hippo Water Carrier was designed to address the needs of low income people in developing regions and displaced persons in temporary camps. Supplying a household with water often requires a substantial investment in time to travel to and from the water supply location and wait for one’s turn. The Hippo water container is a fat hollow plastic wheel that has a long U-shaped handle fastened at the axle. Individuals can pull the carrier behind them while it rolls on the ground. The photo shows the carrier in use juxtaposed with a woman carrying a bucket on her head. The carrier reduces the effort required to carry water significantly, and, as the photo illustrates, allows an individual to carry much more water at one time which also reduces the number of trips needed to maintain a household on a weekly basis.
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.
