Cardiff Design Festival

Brief

The DBA Inclusive Design Challenge is an annual design competition to create a mainstream product or communication which can be enjoyed by people of all abilities and meet the needs of the widest market spectrum. Launched by the Royal College of Art Helen Hamlyn Centre in collaboration with the DBA, the 2010 brief was entitled Active Aging – designing for our future selves, looked at the challenges of our growing ageing population remaining active and productive in later life.

Result

“The team's response capitalised on the well-understood concept of the Footnote and framed it within the successful Wiki format, allowing people to navigate essential documents with confidence. The ability to leave feedback and its potential for audio compatibility means that forms of all kinds can be tailored to suit diverse needs and the judges felt Footnote's potential as an accreditation system would act as a real spur to other websites to become user-friendly.” DBA judges’ comments

Solution

With basic Government services about to go online and much of the aging population intimidated by the digital revolution, there’s a problem looming. Footnote, developed and designed by bwa, aims to fix that. Footnote allows you to write notes for web pages, which can be seen and edited by other users. Simple tips, recommendations, warnings and advice can be passed between a global community of users. Footnote retrofits the internet with an online instruction manual – user friendly to all.

Project website

http://www.footnote.me.uk