What if…users do not know how to be inclusive through design

Inclusive Design is a response to design exclusion and aims to create design that is mainstream in nature, which can benefit the majority. Over the years, working with people who are commonly excluded by design has proved to be an effective way of developing inclusively designed products, services, environments and communications for other groups in the population. One educational mechanism that has achieved this is called the Inclusive Design Challenge. This knowledge transfer mechanism was started in 2000 by Cassim in the United Kingdom as an open competition for professional designers who were members of the Design Business Association (DBA). She has introduced this methodology to other countries such as Japan, Israel, Singapore, and the Scandinavian region and has developed it as a design and inclusion training workshop for companies and educational institutions. This paper looks at the 48 Hour Inclusive Design Challenge that took place in Hong Kong in August 2008 and involved participating designers from Hong Kong, Mainland China and East and Southeast Asia. Besides identifying different design practices and their relationship with social development, the focus of this paper is the introduction of ‘creative engaging tactics’ (exclusion, segregation, integration and inclusion) that were developed to inspire ‘users’ who are ‘design excluded’ to understand the importance of design as a subject and enable them to be effective ‘design partners’ who can work with designers and thereby be included in the design process. Reflections are made and suggestions are discussed.