Improving inclusive design practice - transferring knowledge from sports design practice

Despite the existence of many design tools to educate and assist the designer in implementing inclusive design, there is still a lack of inclusive design uptake in industry. The client is often cited as a barrier to inclusive design uptake, therefore it is important that this issue is addressed if inclusive design uptake is to be increased. Sports design is a highly user focused discipline, therefore it is anticipated that there is scope for inclusive design to learn from this user centred discipline. This research aims to investigate the potential of applying the sports design process within an inclusive design context to increase inclusive design uptake in industry. The paper reports on a practical study, which interviewed practicing industry designers and designers from a UK centre specialising in inclusive design. The outcome is a set of recommendations from designers on how the sports design process model can be developed to facilitate inclusive design uptake in industry.