Universal Design
Universal Design can be considered an approach to designing the environment and products that takes into consideration the changes experienced by everyone during their lifetime. Rather than focus on adapting things for an individual at a later time, an accessible environment is created from the beginning. When designers apply universal design principles, their products and services meet the needs of potential users with a wide variety of characteristics. Disability is just one of many characteristics that an individual might possess. For example, one person could be five feet four inches tall, female, forty years old, a poor reader, and deaf. All of these characteristics, including her deafness, should be considered when developing a product or service she might use.
The following links provide more information about Universal Design:
- Bobby approval for a Web site's accessibility:
http://www.cast.org
- Voluntary Product Accessibility Template—Verifies whether or not a product or software is determined to be accessible by Section 508 standards:
http://www.itic.org/policy/vpat.html
- W3 guidelines for accessibility in Web design:
http://www.w3.org
- Dr. Jon Gunderson's web site for “Designing Universally Accessible WWW Resources”:
http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu
- Web site developed by the Division of Rehabilitation-Education Services at University of Illinois, Champaign that provides a Microsoft web publishing accessibility wizard for PowerPoint, Word and Excel:
http://www.rehab.uiuc.edu/office
Last revised on 11/10/2004
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