My mom had a friend reluctantly move into a home that was previously owned by a person who uses a wheelchair. The reluctance was primarily due to unfamiliarity with this different mode of home design. She gave her new home a few personal touches and moved in. To this day she can’t keep quiet about how much she loves her new home and the greater ease it offers with wider doors, hallways and aisles, no steps or thresholds, easily reached storage spaces, and spacious rooms and bathrooms. That is the user experience of universal design.

At Universal Design Resource we have one mission: to advocate, educate and support the widespread awareness of universal design. We don’t have to pass any laws or legislation to force it to happen. It’s just a better way to live. Once you know about it, you’ll demand it. Once you demand it, it will happen.

You’ll want it in your home, in your appliances and products, your towns and cities, your workplace and place of worship, your entertainment centers, everywhere! You don’t like struggling to read poorly designed signs while you find your way in a busy subway station. You don’t like hurting yourself on a poorly designed tool. You don’t want to fall in a hallway that is dark and full of obstructions. You want to get on with the life you love, not be hindered by it. Universal design makes that possible, knowing about it is the hurdle that must be overcome.

Universal Design Resource seeks to make universal design known first by providing what will become the best universal design website on the internet. As this site grows, you will find everything you need: links to education, products, services and information, discussion forums, networking, travel, builders, architects, etc. Universal Design Resource will be your one-stop link for everything universal design and more, it will be better than any search engine. Within one minute, you will be looking at the links you need, not sifting through hundreds of slightly to completely unrelated sites.

Next, Universal Design Resource is publishing the first user-friendly book on universal design. This is the kind of workbook you tuck under your arm as you go from room to room and begin to make changes. It’s the same one you show your architect or contractor. It’s the one you’ll keep next to your favorite cookbooks. It guides you through improvements you can make right now to the major considerations that come with renovation or relocation.

With the publication of the book, comes greater exposure for Universal Design Resource in the form of public speaking, panel discussions, TV and radio appearances and increased partnerships with businesses and governments striving to adopt universal design.

Universal Design Resource has several longer term projects. The first is our seal of approval which goes on products that meet enough criteria to be considered universal design. Imagine walking down the aisle at Home Depot and being able to easily distinguish a universal design product by its blue Universal Design Resource seal of approval.

Once Universal Design Resource succeeds, we will be able to close our doors and put our attention elsewhere. When the world knows about universal design, it will demand it and our job is over. Universal design makes sense, makes life easier, saves resources and provides independence, joy, security and comfort.

     Konrad Kaletsch, President

     November 2010 ©