- Barrier-free Design
Before the legislation was promoted, early advocates of Barrier-free Design and building accessibility had realised that many environmental changes for disabled people could benefit everyone. Many similar functions can be popularised and promoted, which is cheaper, more attractive, and even more marketable. It will not carry stigmatisation and discriminatory labels, laying the foundation for the Universal Design movement. In 1963, British architect Selwyn Goldsmith published a comprehensive architectural design guideline entitled “Designing for the Disabled” (Goldsmith 1963).

 

- Transgenerational Design
Professor James Pirkl of Syracuse University and his colleagues in the United States proposed the concept of Transgenerational Design and a series of guidelines and strategies applicable to this concept. It advocates that products, services, and environments meet the needs of people of different ages and abilities simultaneously, with particular emphasis on the elderly working with young people in the same environment (Pirkl 1991). This research reflected the problem in aged care, which is concerned about workers and residents.

 

- Universal Design
American architect, designer, and education pioneer Ronald Mace gave a practical seven principles of Universal Design and gradually developed the concept from barrier-free design to emphasise that the environment should suit the disabled. Moreover, the built environments do not need to be specially adjusted to the best possible concept for everyone (Story, Mueller & Mace 1998).

 

- Design for All
In Scandinavia, Northern Europe, a similar concept is called Design for All, emphasising that products should be designed to be used by the broadest user base, tolerate human diversity, and respect human equality (Bendixen & Benktzon 2015). Besides, the product should include dignity consideration in aged care.

 

- Inclusive Design
In the United Kingdom, its primary purpose is to advocate that mainstream products, services, and environments should meet as much as possible while recognising the diversity of user groups and minimising the exclusion of the design (Clarkson, P John & Coleman 2015; Waller et al. 2015).

 

Although derived from different historical sources and perspectives, the goals of Inclusive Design, Universal Design, Design for All, Transgenerational Design, and Assistive Technology are almost the same, which is to reduce and eliminate the gap between ideas and concepts.