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Design for All - A Management Tool - www.designforalleurope.org

Design for All - A Management Tool

By Karin Bendixen

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In 1998, Comelta was one of the pilot group of companies that decided to implement the Design for All Commitment Label throughout their structures, from production to management. A manufacturer located in Cerdanyola del Valles, outside Barcelona, Comelta has been accumulating considerable experience and doing research in the electronics, IT, and telecommunications sector since 1976 and now employs 140. Its core products include ticket vending machines.

Eye-opener
In the large production hall, Francesc Cruz, Associate General Director and R&D Director, points at the ticket vending machine, whose eye-catching red colour invites you to press its buttons, as he comments that the process of developing accessibility in this particular machine really opened the companys eyes to the possibilities of Design for All. "The implementation of accessibility has unquestionably constituted a unique

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competitive parameter for us, and we are now about to implement Design for All in our other products and in several departments," he states. "You can find our products in airports, railway stations and shopping centres: all sorts of people have to use and operate them. As a consequence, they must be designed to be adaptable and highly accessible to a wide range of different user needs. Our goal is to continue to simplify the procedure to the greatest possible extent, so as to benefit users."

A useful Tool
What makes this management tool so special? Couldnt you have used any other one to ensure quality and usability in your organisation and products? "So far, the Design for All Commitment Label and the analysis tool, called The Current Situation Diagnosis, appear to be very useful tools," says Francesc Cruz. In fact, when it comes to securing accessible and usable products, he cannot think of any other currently available management tools which manage to provide any comparably well-balanced focus on the product and also on the basic attitude and commitment of the organisation and the employees. Cruz emphasises that the implementation of the Design for All Commitment Label must be seen in the context of other quality control efforts particularly ISO certification. He believes that the company is capable of implementing the Design for All strategy for itself to a considerable extent, but agrees that consultancy is needed for certain task.

DfA from the Start

"The process is now in motion. Apart from further developing Design for All in our products, keeping our employees informed about what we are doing and what we are working for is a very important benchmark for our success. We have gone some of the way to achieving physical accessibility to our company, which accommodates a few

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of our employees who are disabled, but the web is not at all accessible." At first sight, the implementation of the Design for All concept in your company seems to require additional financial resources. Has it actually increased your costs? "As you can imagine, it is always more expensive to change things afterwards. But if you have to do something new, it need not necessarily cost any more to incorporate accessibility and usability from the start. In this context, it is important that the company itself shows the way with its own employees, organisation and physical framework," underlines Cruz, concluding that, if manufacturers want to guarantee that users have a fully useable and accessible product, their suppliers must also understand and work with Design for All. Published in Crisp & Clear No. 4, December 2000

Published: 4 December 2000 Updated: 13 March 2008

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