Design for situations

The Marbella street — old town, Marbella

Me, in the middle of the street, unremarkable. Smooth paving joins the whole passage, plants and lanterns stand beside the route rather than in it. I have a series of self-portraits at inaccessible places. This is the opposite photograph: a self-portrait at a place where the question never comes up. The best places in my collection are the ones with the least to point at. That is why they are valuable, even if they are not perfect. They are the evidence that ordinary streets can already do this.

The flagstone strip through the cobbles — Bornholm

A covered gateway passage between half-timbered houses, floored with rough cobblestone, and straight through the middle runs a smooth flagstone strip. Wheels and feet get a level path, and the cobble texture at its edges lets a white cane sweep and follow along. Three modalities served by one unmarked surface. Nothing announces it, and nobody needs to ask.

The form that never asks — web checkouts

A good checkout asks for what the errand needs: a name, an address, a way to reach you. No title, no gender, no date of birth, because nothing downstream uses them. Every field a form drops is a question that never has to be answered. This is the digital version of the move: delete the field. The best forms are like the best streets. Nothing to point at, nothing to explain, and the errand just gets done.

“Every single user” — SS-EN 17161, Swedish edition (a standard in force today)

Every single user has their own profile of needs, properties, abilities, and preferences /…/ The abilities of most people change considerably during their lifetime, from childhood, to adulthood, and old age. Besides, changed circumstances, accidents, diseases, and other life-changing events can lead to considerable change regarding needs, properties, abilities, and preferences.

Sometimes a solution can be to describe a single individual’s circumstances or the situation they find themselves in, as is done here. This is found in EN 17161, a European standard in force today. Interestingly, the same standard elsewhere defines Design for All as reaching “the widest range of users”, a phrasing that still divides people into a majority and the rest. One and the same document can carry both the old habit and this passage. That is why I read one passage at a time, instead of judging a whole document at once.

“For everybody who pees standing up” — venue toilet, France

A handwritten sign (sent to us by an anonymous participant) that corrects itself in the middle of a word: the gendered French ending is crossed out and replaced with tous.tes. Then, in English: for everybody who pees standing up. The sign describes an activity, not a gender and not a body type. And the materials show that the move costs nothing. A marker pen, and the decision not to sort people.

“Based on norms” — Swedish policy text (rewritten in our Syntax of Equality project, translated from Swedish)

Discrimination, harassment and bullying at work are based on norms regarding gender and sexuality.

Nobody loses their protection. What disappears is the idea that the group is the problem. The original said: “Research shows that LGBTQI people, compared to other employees, are more often subjected to offensive treatment, harassment and bullying at work.”

“Julen är här” (Christmas is here) — galleria entrance, Sweden

“Julen är här” means “Christmas is here”. This photo is the counter-example in my own red-carpet collection. Twenty photographs show carpets rolled over stairs, where the celebration works as a barrier. Here the ground is level, the doors are wide, and the same red carpet is simply festive. The good example is not the carpet. It is the level ground underneath it.