In their article, Newell et al. take up the difficulty in applying user-centred and participatory design approaches to contexts where user groups contain older adults and people with disabilities. User-centred, participatory and similar design methodologies aim to ensure that the user – rather than the designer – is at the heart of the design process, usually by involving and collaborating with prospective users. The authors note that, while the techniques are useful for conventional design, they are less successful when the population exhibits a much greater variety of user characteristics and required functionality as is often the case with older adults and people with disabilities. Similarly, universal design and “design for all” approaches inevitably prescribe a more normative conceptualization of disability; although a wide range of users may be served by universal design, considering the requirements of marginalized groups may be framed as “an ‘add-on’ extra to an otherwise well-designed product” (236).

The authors propose instead a new methodology: user-sensitive inclusive design, wherein “inclusive” suggests a more realistic and achievable scope than “universal,” and “sensitive” encourages the designer to look beyond physical characteristics and take the whole person in account. Empathy and emotional investment from designers are integral components of user-sensitive inclusive design, particularly in response to approaches that prioritize usability at the expense of aesthetics.[1] To address the representational shortcomings of using invented personas on one hand while avoiding the ethical issues of working with marginalized users on the other, Newell et al. recommend enlisting theatre professionals to act out open-ended scenarios for an audience of designers and, potentially, prospective users. They claim that performance can act as a bridge between design and ethnography, “a tool for making ethnographic insights more visible, exploratory and exploitable within design processes” (241), and conclude with examples how theatrical techniques have been used by the authors and others.

Though “User-Sensitive Inclusive Design” does not speak directly to the concerns of creating archival interfaces in virtual reality, there are nonetheless valuable observations and theoretical insights to take away from it. The authors’ insistence that designers ought to form empathetic relationships with users in order to view them as people rather than as subjects for usability testing speaks to the limited ways in which archival users are typically perceived; that is, in the narrow terms of their information needs. Of particular interest is their regrettably brief discussion of critical design, described as “‘design that asks carefully crafted questions and makes us think’, as opposed to ‘design that solves problems or finds answers'” (238, quoting Dunne) – how then might critical design be incorporated in the context of the current project? The authors’ argument for the importance of aesthetics is also well-taken, given the strictly functional design of most archival finding aids. Lastly, their use of theatrical performance in the requirements gathering stage of design hints at the possibilities within the archival profession to take a more creative and participatory approach to engaging users in the development of interfaces – broadly conceived – to archival materials.

[1] Newell et al. give the illustrative example of walking sticks: where they were once elaborately designed as a fashion accessory, they have since become a blandly utilitarian piece of assistive technology.