Inclusive Digital Application

The project Inclusive Digital Working Life (IDA) investigates the costs, benefits, and effects of universal design in ICT systems. In Norway, between 15 and 19 per cent of the population lives with a disability (Bufdir, 2020). Universal design can help more people remain in employment for longer, reduce the reliance on part-time work, and improve quality of life. Yet, we still lack knowledge about its actual impact, including costs and broader consequences. The IDA project helps closing this knowledge gap. We carry out controlled trials of universal design in ICT systems and examine both the costs and how it affects accessibility, usability, user experience, efficiency, and related factors. The project is led by the Norwegian Computing Center in collaboration with DIPS AS, one of Norway’s largest providers of healthcare systems. Other partners include the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration, Norsk helsenett (the Norwegian Health Network), and the Norwegian Association of the Blind and Partially Sighted. This broad collaboration ensures that perspectives from authorities, the healthcare sector, user organisations, and employees are represented. New insights into the profitability of universal design will provide a basis for to-the-point recommendations to businesses, public administration, and policymakers. The goal is to reduce exclusion, promote a more inclusive working life, and develop technical solutions that benefit the entire population.

The IDA Project is about the effects of accessible and universally designed IT systems for the inclusiveness of digital workplaces. The project’s vision is to reduce exclusion, in particular among employees with impairments, to prevent withdrawal, contribute to longer working lives, and increase the individual quality of life. While working life in Norway is a field that is not covered by the Directive for Universal Design of ICT, recent research has documented many examples of barriers and areas of exclusion for employees with impairments. Moreover, it is well known that the share of impaired individuals who are not part of the workforce - but want to be - is much higher than among non-impaired individuals. Difficulties and barriers are often caused by technical issues and the lack of universal design of technical solutions, in particular when ordinary IT systems are combined with impaired employees’ assistive technologies. The IDA Project aims to prove that universal design of ICT can remedy this situation and increase the inclusiveness of digital workplaces. To reach this goal, the project group’s strategy is to carry out multiple effect analyses. Universal design measures are applied to an IT system widely used in the Norwegian health sector in a controlled manner, such that their costs are known. These investments are then contrasted by the effects measured for employees with and without impairments with regard to factors like technical access, user experience, user satisfaction, efficiency, and so on. Finding the most appropriate methods for the implementation of measures, user participation, carrying out trials, evaluating the trials and measuring all relevant factors will be part of the research.