Creating opportunities through Inclusive Design

Value creation

The potential of ideas developed using the principles of inclusive design is enormous. By using design thinking as an innovation-triggering tool, Innovation for All believes that new value and opportunities can be created for both customers and companies, leaving competition behind.

People-centred innovation

By taking a people-centred approach based on understanding the importance of customer diversity in the development of products and services, solutions can be more innovative, relevant and attractive for the user. This way, your organisation can contribute to creating a more inclusive society for all as well as become more competitive and profitable.

Innovation for All provides the tools and teaches the necessary skills to give you a deeper understanding of your customers. We can advise you on how to develop strategies for innovation and how to apply inclusive design techniques to give you an innovative edge. We have been on the forefront of inclusive design and innovation for decades.

People attending a seminar with post-it's on the wall

Inclusive design is sustainable design

People, planet and profit are the thre pillars of sustainable development. UNs SDG are focused on social sustainability in context, and all pillars are equally important in any development process. Through knowledge sharing, transferring expertise and know how, Innovation for All aims to help companies becoming sustainable by focusing on a holistic and viable approach.

Contributing to creating more sustainable, people-centred and innovative solutions for business and public institutions

Creating opportunities
Inclusive design, also known as Design for All and “universal design,” is often defined as the design of products, services, and environments in such a way that they can be used by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. However, it is much more than that. Inclusive design is also a mindset, a philosophy, as well as a strategy and a practical approach. It is a powerful tool for innovation, as well as a leadership approach for creatives.

In a world of constant and accelerating changes, with global challenges such as ageing societies, climate change, urbanization, and rapid digitalization, creative leadership and inclusive design can be part of the solution.

Design thinking has become more mainstream over the last decade, integrated into business strategies at management level in many corporations. Large companies now see the potential and value of design and what it can bring to their clients, and many have established their own in-house design agencies. A McKinsey study of 300 companies over five years concluded that design performers increase their revenue and shareholder returns at nearly twice the rate of their industry counterparts, but that over 40 percent of the companies surveyed still do not talk to their end users during development.

To be truly people-centred means a commitment to conducting qualitative research involving a wide range of people and applying a combination of tools, methods, and research techniques appropriate for the task or issue at stake. All of these require a leadership mindset to implement.

Involving a variety of people (often called “lead users”) based on age, gender, abilities, cultural background on in design and development processes requires a variety of research techniques—some borrowed from marketing, anthropology, and ethnography—to understand needs, challenges, behavior, and perspectives. This should preferably take place in context throughout all stages of the process in order to discover visual, audio, tactile, cognition, and mobility issues. However, these tasks are not only about people’s functional needs and behavior but also about their hopes, aspirations, and dreams. Information about these equally important aspects can inspire and challenge leaders, designers, and architects, and provide new insights and visions fueling creativity and driving innovation.

There are many examples of an inclusive design leading to significant innovations, such as the well-known remote control initially intended for people with reduced mobility, and the introduction of text messages (sms) in mobile phones meant for deaf and hearing-impaired people. Lead users have been the catalyst that paved the way for such successful innovations for the mainstream market that, needless to say, have changed all our daily lives for the better. Lead users can be leaders in their own right. They challenge solutions and use them in extreme ways and can be a rich source of inspiration and information.

For business, inclusive design is a strategy that goes beyond design and development of products and services. It can be a foundational philosophy for employment policy, staff management, customer service, communication, and marketing strategy. It requires a minimum amount of investment compared to technological research and product development and is therefore a low-tech, cost-saving, and uncomplicated innovation method, with low barriers for implementation.

In technology-driven industries, inclusive design can ensure that digital and high-tech solutions are developed based on a deeper understanding of their customers’ needs and challenges.

For public institutions, inclusive design strategy can help to improve services to be more inclusive and user-friendly, as well as more effective and cost saving, but also to become more innovative in terms of operations, structures and systems.

Innovation for All aims to promoting user-centred and inclusively designed product solutions. This is achieved by advising clients on how to develop both people-centred and sustainable products, services and environments. By sharing knowledge and offering expertise, Innovation for All wishes to enable and empower clients to become more creative and innovative through inclusive design.

Tools

Photo Credit: Creative Morning/Annemari Ruthven

The creator

Onny Eikhaug is the founder of Innovation for All AS and former President of EIDD Design for All Europe. Having established and developed the government funded Innovation for All Programme since 2005 at Design and Architecture Norway, Eikhaug is now taking her experience, knowledge and expertise into Innovation for All AS. She continues to develop the field of sustainable, inclusive design – as a mainsteam strategy for people-centred innovation in private and public sector as well as in academia.

She is committed to sustainable, people-centred design and is focused on demonstrating the potential of this approach as a powerful and profitable strategy for innovation. A key aspect of this is presenting and implementing effective methods that can easily be adopted by any organisation or enterprise. She writes, publishes, lectures, facilitates workshops and curates exhibitions both in Norway and internationally, and works closely with designers, education, industry, research and government using real projects and other knowledge transfer mechanisms to achieve this. She advises and coordinates people-centered inclusive design projects within business and public sector applying and testing new tools and methods for user research and involvement. She is responsible for the books Innovating with people –The Business of Inclusive Design» and Innovating with People - Inclusive Design and Architecture as editor-in-chief and author. These are sold to over 45 countries.

After graduating from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, she has achieved a broad executive experience in international marketing, sales, innovation, product development and design management in the fields of personal products, ergonomic lighting, and contemporary furniture, having worked for companies such as Unilever and Luxo across Europe and the US. She was also Managing Director of a Norwegian strategic design company.

She was in 2015 appointed Inclusive Design Champion Award by an international jury at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art, London at the Include conference. She was the President of EIDD Design for All Europe from 2017- 2021. She was in 2019 appointed Councilor of the International Association for Universal Design (IAUD), in Japan, and in 2021 elected as Chair of the Selection Committee of the IAUD Design Award.