The Institute for Design and Disability

"Good Design Enables, Bad Design Disables"

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IDD Professional Services

IDD offers professional services on design for all, disability advocacy and consultancy. If you are interested in being part of our team of consultants, please complete the individual profile form and submit to info@idd.ie to be considered for our database of experts.

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Priority for job selection will be given to members of IDD.

Activities of IDD

The Barcelona Declaration Project is of two and a half years duration and is the largest project ever handled by IDD.
The National Disability Authority, as the statutory agency of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, organised an open, public tender for this project. In September 2001, IDD won the contract. The IDD board appointed a team and set up an office to deliver the project which commenced in 2001. The project is led by Michal Ozmin.

This was the first time in the history of IDD that the Institute was provided with an opportunity to work directly with Local Authorities. IDD has the task of enabling Local Authorities to equality/disability-proof their decision-making processes and of implementing the articles of the Barcelona Declaration. Find out more about the Barcelona Declaration Project at www.barcelonaproject.ie

A travelling exhibition demonstrating Design For All

The Office of Public Works is recognised for its commitment to the achievement of best practice in Irish architectural design. In April 2001, the Office of Public Works invited IDD to collaborate in the creation of a new traveling exhibition demonstrating the principles and performance requirements of Design For All in Ireland. In return, IDD was given publicity as the source of expertise on best practice and identified as a partner of the OPW in the design of the exhibition. The Chairman was accompanied by Ms. Caitriona Shaffrey and Ms. Fionnuala Rogerson in attendance at steering group meetings on behalf of IDD. Ann Scroope Design, Ltd., was appointed as the Main Contractor to the project. The formal opening of the exhibition was held in the middle of October 2002 in the Atrium of the OPW. It is now traveling to 10 venues all around Ireland for the next 12 months. View Schedule

Accessibility Guidelines for Irish Providers of IT Services.

This first project commenced in September 2001 and was completed in June this year. The National Disability Authority was the client and the main contractor was Front End Ltd., Dublin. IDD was a subcontractor providing input and acting as an internal review Panel. Front End Ltd. sought the support of IDD in its bid for the NDA contract for the delivery of this project. IDD was asked to identify individuals with expertise in the field of IT accessibility and to obtain their consent to participate. Mr. Bob Allen, CRC and Cearbhall O'Meadhra of IDD delivered the contract. This project has now been completed and the resulting guidelines are entitled “IRISH NATIONAL IT ACCESSIBILITY GUIDELINES”.

Icons, symbols and pictograms for card reading devices and
Access for all to card reading devices

The second project was set up to produce a new CEN standard. CEN is the European institution for the development of design standards in a wide variety of fields. When CEN Management Centre issued a call for experts to undertake a contract to specify standards for the design of Icons Pictograms and symbols for card reading devices it was felt that the then Chairman should submit an application from IDD. CEN works through project teams under a designated technical committee. This project was the responsibility of Technical Committee 224 and was being executed by two project teams identified as above.

The IDD bid was successful and the then chairman, Cearbhall O' Meadhra was the official contributor from IDD. The contract was for 21 man-days. The main contractor was Association Francaise de Normalisation (AFNOR, France). The consultancy work commenced in September 2001. The work involved reading source materials relating to older standards many of which proved impossible to obtain in machine-readable form. This made it impossible for Cearbhall to deliver the main body of the work assigned to IDD. To assist Cearbhall, the IDD commissioned Ms. Brona Collins, an expert programmer in voice activation and very familiar with the design of standards. Her contribution was of such high quality that the IDD submission has been appended, in its entirety, to the draft standard.

Expert Group on Accessibility

Last November, 2002, Ms. Fionnuala Rogerson, Architect and IDD member was nominated by ACE (the Architects Council of Europe) to the EC Expert Group on Accessibility.

The mandate of the Expert Group is to examine the current accessibility legislation within member & accession states and to make recommendations as to new initiatives to improve access to the built environment by September 2003. The work will take place under the DG for Employment & Social Affairs.

Outline of the Expert Group's mandate, Scope and Programme.

The Expert group is now preparing its final recommendations.

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