Supporting industry in the development of design for all curriculum

Abstract

There are very few sources of information about industry needs in regard to the required Design for All knowledge and skills for designers and engineers. A common finding of many studies, besides technical feasibility and commercial viability, is the lack of awareness among suppliers and users on DfA. In this paper, some of the results of a series of workshops organized by Fraunhofer FIT under the scope of some EU-financed projects will be presented. We claim the need to create common guidelines on teaching DfA, which should not be limited to curriculum at universities but also for training employees within the companies. The guidelines should contain topics like: what to teach, whom to teach, how to teach and where to teach. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.