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Panel judge... now there’s a cushy job.

By The Team 17 Mar 2009.
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... it’s a great reminder of the role the design industry can play in improving lives.

I was lucky enough to be a judge for this year’s DBA Inclusive Design Challenge. Each year five teams of professionals from UK design agencies are shortlisted to spend five months working with a range of users to explore, devise and test a new design solution. It’s a wonderful example of user-centred design and innovation in practice.

This year’s theme was Sedentary Lives, and was sponsored by Sanctuary Care. In a world of coach potato kids, office workers stuck at their desks and those living out their lives in supported care homes, teams were challenged to come up with original ways to improve quality of life and to get people moving. The solutions varied widely, with approaches focused on everything from a community gardening campaign to portion control gadgets for the kitchen.

The winning entry, from Matter, is an architectural reinvention of the cushion. Working with their client Herman Miller (of Aeron fame) they’ve developed an ingenious spring and pixel structure that distributes weight and promotes micro-movements. Great for those that have little choice but to spend too much time sat on their backsides. It also gives confidence to those that might otherwise think twice about venturing out. And for care homes, it provides a very real way to reduce both costs and environmental impact in comparison to conventional foam and gel cushions. I was particularly impressed by how easy it was to put its ‘skin’ on: this after watching a painful video of arthritic hands struggling to stuff a soft cushion into a soft cushion cover.

At its heart, the DBA Design Challenge is an opportunity to throw designers into real life situations away from the studio and to drive innovation through exploring first-hand the impact of your design decisions. It’s something we aspire to in all our projects at The Team and a mindset we’re applying now to our work on the NHS digital choice gateway. Inclusive design practice embodies all the same principles as user-centred design and it’s a great reminder of the role the design industry can play in improving lives. Something else we’re very committed to.

It’s six years since The Team won this award for our work with our Emergency Alert product for the deaf - I think it’s about time we took up the DBA challenge again.