P. Robinson – författare

Rapid and unprecedented population ageing poses a serious social and economic challenge across the developed world. Shifts in dependency ratios point to escalating welfare and pensions costs which require radical and imaginative responses from Government and industry. Key to this is a healthy population able and willing to work longer before retirement and who can be independent for as long as possible afterwards as well as bringing disabled people into mainstream life and employment.

This book was stimulated by the 3rd CWUAAT workshop (the CWUAAT workshops have a general focus on product and solution development). It was held in Cambridge, UK in April 2006. Contributions from leading researchers focused on:

- design issues for a more inclusive world;

- enabling computer access and the development of new technologies;

- assistive technology and rehabilitation robotics; and,

- understanding users and involving them in design.

“Designing Inclusive Futures” reflects the need to explore, in a coherent way, the issues and practicalities that lie behind design that is intended to extend our active future lives. This encompasses design for inclusion in daily life at home but also extends to the workplace and for products within these contexts. For example, given trends in employment sector growth, skills requirements, labour supply and demographic change, there is a need to predict the critical areas where individual capabilities are mismatched with the physical, social and organisational demands of work. This mismatch, which can be addressed within the domain of inclusive design, is pervasively linked to real artefacts in workspaces and their intersection with the health factors that relate to ageing. This book is the result of the fourth CWUAAT workshop held in Cambridge, England in April 2008.