Brunel Design School and Open Inclusion address the inclusive design for immersive technology gap with a ground-breaking partnership.
The need
Despite the development of immersive technologies being a priority of the UK Industrial Strategy, inclusive design for immersive tech is still a largely under-explored area.
The solution
With the view of enabling Open Inclusion to build and expand its business platform, the preliminary work included building a network of partners focused on the inclusive design of the immersive reality.
The next step forward was a joint funding application to Innovate UK’s Audience of the Future: Design Foundations fund. In addition to Brunel Design and Open Inclusion, this application involved Channel 4.
The outcome
- Funding of ca. £60,000 to develop inclusive design solutions to improve access to 360° videos for users with motor, perceptual and cognitive impairments and disabilities and for older users.
- Improved levels of inclusion across the disability and age spectrum for broadcast, gaming and education content in VR, AR and MR.
- Potential to make a significant contribution to enlarging the immersive tech sector of the UK economy considering that the population of people with disabilities in the UK amounts to more than 11 million
- The partnership expanded to include Cambridge Engineering Design Centre, Games London, To Play For, Virti Health and RNIB.
- Grant of ca. £600,000 for the development of the Inclusive Design Toolkit for Immersive Reality.
Inclusive design has been a topic of research within design for many years. But applying inclusive design in the context of immersive technology has been relatively new, it is novel research. As an academic you always want to do something that hasn’t been done before and that can potentially benefit people and in this case people with disabilities
Dr Vanja Garaj - Reader in Design
Partnering with confidence
Organisations interested in our research can partner with us with confidence backed by an external and independent benchmark: The Knowledge Exchange Framework. Read more.
Case study last modified 15/07/2022