Intelligent Design

A few years ago at a conference I first learned about the concept of Universal Design and was fascinated. A nurse was talking about working with people with disabilities at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. She had explained how she had done things around the hospital in order to make jobs easier for the employees who didn't read. After the employees with disabilities learned their jobs, she took down the pictures as they didn't need them anymore. When she took the pictures down, employees without disabilities were unhappy as they had learned to rely on them to make their jobs easier as well.

"By definition, Universal Design is the creation of products and environments meant to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialization. The intent of Universal Design is to simplify life for everyone by making products, communications and the built environment more usable by as many people as possible at little or no extra cost. Universal Design benefits people of all ages and abilities. True Universal Design is unobtrusive, even invisible. If you've ever been through an automatic door, you've experienced a version of Universal Design."

Kellen is left-handed which makes his life just that much harder on top of the other challenges he faces. When he was younger I noticed that he always turned door knobs the wrong direction and they wouldn't open. Sometimes he couldn't get a grip on the doorknob or didn't have enough strength to turn it. When we upgraded the doors in our home, we chose to install lever door handles instead of door knobs.

It was incredible the subtle benefits the lever door handles brought the rest of us. We can open the door easily with either hand. If we are carrying a laundry basket or an armful of groceries, we don't even have to use our hands to open the door, but can just push on the lever with our elbow. The funny thing is, even the dog can raise up on her hind legs and push down the lever to let herself in from the backyard (now if she'd only learn to also shut the door behind her).

Universal Design is now easily incorporated into how I think about things. Since I want Kellen to be able to participate fully in his community, I automatically think of ways that we could better "design" things to make that happen. Once in awhile, I stumble on an environment which seems uniquely and naturally designed for him, even though I know it wasn't. Our church is such an environment. I call it our Universal Design Church.