An ingenious reinterpretation of the traditional sticking plaster is the winner of the DBA Design Challenge 2004/5. ‘Clevername’™, designed by healthcare specialists Pearson Matthews, reassesses how a sticking plaster is used, and the problems that occur when anybody attempts to dress a surface wound, which are compounded if the user is disabled. The DBA Design Challenge invites design companies to integrate the principles of inclusive design into their work so that the results can be enjoyed equally by able and physically impaired users. In association with the RCA’s Helen Hamlyn Research Centre, working with user groups comprising disabled people, five projects evolved which were shortlisted for the DBA Design Challenge. They included a SMART bus shelter by Lacock Gullam; a communication toolkit for all creative people called STIK by Corporate Edge; a vacuum cleaner by Rodd Industrial Design and a branding system by Enterprise IG. The winner was announced tonight (23 February 2005) at a presentation at the RCA.
Pearson Matthews winning solution -
Sticking plasters belong to a class of products that we bless and curse in equal measure. They are the first thing we turn to when we cut our finger or when a child falls and grazes their knee. But when the accident involves ourselves, we revert instantly to the status of a one-handed individual doing a job that requires two hands and a good set of teeth. With this realisation, our language changes from the reasonable to a more colourful shade of blue.
First we must locate the box of plasters lying somewhere at the back of the cupboard. Having ripped open the box with our teeth, taking care not to drip all over the new carpet, we extract a single plaster of indeterminate size. Then with the thumb still firmly pressed to the wound, our greatest challenge lies ahead. We must try and remove the glossy paper backing from the adhesive tape of the plaster with our one functioning hand. Not as easy as it seems because the sticking plaster will defend itself vigorously by curling back on itself – try and peel it back and it will be unusable and we must then start all over again.
This was the scenario that whetted the interest of Stuart May and his team from Pearson Matthews’ when they decided to enter the DBA Design Challenge 2004-5. Their usual focus is the design of high-end medical products for a specialized market but they were looking for a mass market product that could do with a little inclusive help. The sticking plaster seemed to fit the bill. For, as they found, it had barely changed in concept or levels of usability since it first came on the market in the United States in the 1920s. Then it was a welcome replacement for the unwieldy sticky zinc bandages that had first been developed for the American Civil War and which were themselves a mixed blessing, since they removed skin and hair long after the wound itself had healed.
In 2001, Johnson and Johnson announced that they had sold over one hundred billion of them but they were still unable to come up with any new, less frustrating ways of putting them on.
It was left for May and his team to discover that and the biggest lessons came from the group of disabled users who came together at the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre at the Royal College of Art to help clarify their minds. The group included Tom Yendell who does everything with his feet and quite literally stood the problem on its head. Then there were Robin Coles and Colette Kilmister both of whom have severe arthritis who showed how impossible it was to get to the product inside.
After this intensive session of user research in which, May said, they learned more than they ever thought possible, his team took to their drawing boards. They came up with a design so beautiful in its simplicity and effectiveness that the patent attorney who registered it could not believe that someone had not thought of it before. It was the clear winner of the fifth DBA Inclusive Design Challenge and one can see why.
Clevername, as they have christened it, is a plaster that is intended for one-handed use from the start. By eliminating the secondary wrapping and redesigning the way it is folded and packed, the plaster can now be directly accessed from the pack and placed directly on the wound. The user pulls it out by the single flap that protrudes from the wallet and uses this to place the gauze area over the wound. Both flaps can then be stuck down to the finger and the operation is complete. Removing it is a breeze as the leading end of the tape is clearly indicated. The design team have been careful to ensure that this revolutionary new design will be just as cost effective and easy to manufacture. “All we have done” said May modestly, “is to add significant functional benefit by changing the way people interact with plasters in the first place and it was the disabled users who lighted our path.”
ENDS
For further information, interviews and images please contact Aine Duffy, Head of Media Relations, Royal College of Art on 020 7590 4127, e: aine.duffy@rca.ac.uk
or Karoline Newman, Articulate Communication on 020 7287 1922, e:knewman@articulate.co.uk
NOTES TO EDITORS
The 'DBA Design Challenge innovation through inclusive design' is an annual design competition with a difference. Now in its fifth year, it is a collaboration between the Design Business Association (DBA) and the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre (HHRC) at the Royal College of Art. The Challenge's competitive yet participatory approach has set the standard for a new style of competition where innovation is the keyword, and taking part is the primary motivation.
Design Business Association
The Design Business Association (DBA) exists to promote professional excellence through productive partnerships between commerce and the design industry to champion
effective design which improves the quality of people’s lives.
The DBA’s work represents real and ongoing investment in the future of the design industry. One of our key roles is to help establish design as an investment and not an
expense and to position design as a critical link in the business process. As design’s trade association, we give the UK design industry the strength and impact it needs to make a difference.
The Royal College of Art is the world's only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, specialising in teaching and research and offering the degrees of MA, MPhil and PhD across the disciplines of fine art, applied art, design, communications and humanities. There are nearly nine hundred masters and doctoral students and more than a hundred professionals interacting with them including scholars, leading practitioners of art and design and innumerable specialists, advisors and distinguished visitors.
The four other shortlisted projects for the DBA Design Challenge 2005:
Project 1: Corporate Edge - Stik
“STIK because it prods you into action, gets you working, stops you getting stuck and ultimately helps things stick to memory.” The team at Corporate Edge came up with this ingenious concept of a communications toolkit to help everybody working within the creative industries, particularly people with dyslexia, following the realisation that a disproportionately large number of creatives have this hidden disability. (Indeed, more than one in four of the RCA’s students are dyslexic.)
Project 2: Lacock Gullam - Is that my bus?
The recent redesign of London buses has unfortunately not been matched by a redesign of London bus shelters. For many users they remain woefully inadequate. The team at Lacock Gullam have come up with a radical redesign that uses smart-card technology and a reconfiguration of physical space to make the shelters safer for visually impaired travellers, mothers with pushchairs and many more.
Project 3: EnterpriseIG - OOP
Another communications concept, this time aimed at creating a brand and communications initiative around the idea of inclusivity. It has been described as a kite mark for design-for-all products and services. A serious issue delivered with a fully accessible and humorous approach, this submission promotes inclusivity and highlights the benefits to us all.
Project 4: Rodd Industrial Design Housemate
The team at Rodd Industrial Design were interested in making a common domestic chore more enjoyable, efficient and inclusive. Being unable to do away with cleaning altogether, they’ve gone for the next best thing, a redesign of the vacuum cleaner. This clever gadget includes a host of innovative features, based on issues identified as a result of research with consumers of all abilities.
Submitted: 23 Feb 2005
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