Mentality Shift in Inclusive Design: From Physical to Psychosocial Inclusion.

Abstract

With the dual demographics of people with disabilities and an aging population, inclusive design has been recognised as a design application for designing products, environments and services. Also psychosocial aspects have been used for increasing quality of life in many fields of studies. However, it is not thoroughly and fully applied yet in the field of inclusive design. It is because, the physical aspects have been mainly focused rather than psychosocial aspects in the existing conventional inclusive design principles and applications. With this limited information of the concept of psychosocial aspects in the field of inclusive design, an initial definitions and frameworks for psychosocial inclusion were identified from literature analysis in this research. This initial definition and framework were then developed through an interview study. Hence, the developed definition and framework for psychosocial inclusion in the field of inclusive design were suggested. Theses definition and framework will be refined and verified through a number of research studies such as field study and Delphi interview study in later stages. The final definition and framework may play a potentially crucial role in the future of inclusive design.