Now — Per-Olof Hedvall

Speaking next

4–6 November 2026 Galway, Ireland

Keynote at UD26

The 8th International Universal Design Conference

The working title is Accessibility, Usability and Universal Design Beyond “Us and Them”. I have put up a companion page with related reading now, and the slides and recording will follow after the session.

Writing

Papers for UD26. Three papers and a workshop are accepted for the 8th International Universal Design Conference in Galway in November: Benchmarking Accessibility, Usability, and Universal Design – What Kind of Society Are We Building? (with Lilian Müller, Larry McNutt and Gerald Craddock), The User Paradigm (with Bianca Prins), A study on universal design evaluation methods in an AI-powered environment (with Tomoko Obama and Kristina Brink), and the workshop What Makes Universal Design Visible (with Lilian Müller). Camera-ready versions were submitted in September.

This website. Launched in September 2026 as the home for the work: the design guidelines, the key ideas, the open photo collections, the workshops and experiments, and every edition of the newsletter. Everything here is free to use, no need to ask. It is ongoing work, and I keep adding to it.

The newsletter. Nonclusive by Design goes out on LinkedIn. It is where I test new ideas first. Read the writing, or subscribe on LinkedIn.

Projects

Three active projects, all testing the ideas in practice, outside the university.

2026 – 2028 Formas

Provtryck Konsekvenserna!

Pressurise the Consequences!

What if accessibility consequences were tested before policies were implemented, the way a print is proofed before the press run?

2026 – 2028 Familjen Kamprads stiftelse

Design med delaktighet

Design with Participation

How does design change when participation is the starting condition, not a method bolted onto a finished brief?

2026 – 2029 Formas

Visualisering för Trygghet och Tillgänglighet

Visualisation for Safety and Accessibility

Can a place be made safe without sorting people into the protected and the threatening?

Teaching & supervision

Current doctoral students.

As main supervisor: Anna-Sara Fagerholm · Eva Flodin · Linnéa Eklöf · Mia Larsdotter · Semra Sahin-Haglund
As co-supervisor: Jaxon Pope · Linda Maria Thompson · Riccardo Centazzo · Sheida Amiri Rigi

This autumn I teach two courses at Mid Sweden University: Graphic Design Ethics in October, and Universal Design in December.

Past

A few finished projects and past talks worth keeping in view.

Projects

Jämlikhetens syntax (VINNOVA, 2021 – 2025). Patterns that support equality in built space and language, tested together with four municipalities and published as articles and an open training-film series.

Visualisering för universell utformning i plan- och byggprocesser (VINNOVA, 2021 – 2025). A toolbox of visualisation tools to keep Universal Design visible through the phases of the plan-and-build process. Led by Charlotte Magnusson, Certec, Lund University.

Staden ska funka för alla (VINNOVA, 2020 – 2021).

Kategorisering som stödjer implementeringen av universell utformning (VINNOVA, 2019 – 2020). How categorisation in language and signs produces inequality. The project where the categorisation argument began.

Talks

2026 Kolding, Denmark

Inauguration lecture as Bevica Guest Professor, Kolding School of Design

2025 Denmark

Keynote, DTU SkyLab

2023 and 2024 Denmark

Keynote, the Bevica Foundation

2021 Korea

Keynote, International Universal Design Seminar

2014 Lund, Sweden

Chair, Universal Design 2014

I chaired the conference when it came to Lund and co-edited the proceedings.