{"id":78121,"date":"2021-07-21T11:04:39","date_gmt":"2021-07-21T15:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=78121"},"modified":"2025-09-30T14:14:47","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T18:14:47","slug":"industrial-design-grads-win-top-prize","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/industrial-design-grads-win-top-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"Carleton Industrial Design Grads Win Top Prize in Accessible Design Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Carleton Industrial Design Grads Win Top Prize in Accessible Design Competition\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

A pair of recent graduates from Carleton University\u2019s Industrial Design<\/a> program have won one of the top prizes in this year\u2019s Innovative Designs for Accessibility (IDeA) student competition<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mandy Hui and Liana Meere, who finished their degrees this past spring, developed a labelling system and app to help people with visual impairments select, sort and wash clothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Liana
Liana Meere and Mandy Hui<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Their concept, Closet, uses labels with QR codes to convey the size and colour of a garment as well as care instructions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took first place in IDeA\u2019s attitudinal\/systematic barriers category\u2014the latest in a long list of contest winners from Carleton students over the years and part of the university\u2019s overarching culture of accessibility<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Administered by Universities Canada<\/a>, IDeA challenges university students across Canada to use their creativity to develop innovative, cost-effective and practical solutions to accessibility barriers for people with disabilities. Prizes were also awarded on July 21, 2021 for projects that addressed architectural\/industrial design barriers, technological\/communication barriers, and virtual learning\/distance education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Prof.
Prof. Chiara Del Gaudio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hui and Meere started working on Closet in their third-year studio class, under the supervision of Prof. Chiara Del Gaudio<\/a>, but the 2020 IDeA competition was rolled into this year\u2019s contest because of the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne reason we were drawn to visual impairment as our focus is that once we started doing a little bit of research, it became clear that this was an interesting challenge to try to address through design,\u201d says Meere.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cFor sighted people, smart tech is cool, but for people with visual impairments, it can be a path to independence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cOur program always encouraged designers to take on different perspectives,\u201d adds Hui, \u201cand to empathize with the people we\u2019re designing for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Liana<\/figure>\n\n\n

Smarter and More Accessible Solutions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Hui and Meere approached their effort to make clothing more accessible in an iterative way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially, they wanted to work on a system to help people with visual impairments do laundry. But once the classmates started talking to people in the visually impaired community and the Canadian Council of the Blind, they realized that clothing presented a much broader challenge, not only reading wash instructions but also identifying and matching colours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some solutions already exist, but they aren\u2019t ideal. Many scanning apps can identify colour, for example, but they\u2019re not overly accurate and rely on a certain level of lighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Carleton
A design concept for the Closet app<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pre-printed braille tags can also be used to identify colour, but they\u2019re cumbersome to attach, offer a limited range of colours and don\u2019t help people who don\u2019t read braille\u2014which is not as commonly used as Hui and Meere had thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, they settled on a system of standardized labels\u2014made and attached during the manufacturing process\u2014embroidered with high-contrast, heavy-duty thread to maximize legibility and avoid fading. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The labels in their concept, which would be attached to part of a garment that\u2019s easy to see and feel, include both braille and QR codes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Closet app, users can get all the information they need about their clothing on their phones, through either text or voice, and make notes and customized lists to help them manage their wardrobes.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cFor a person who is visually impaired to navigate the world, they buy specific products or create their own \u2018tricks,\u2019\u201d Hui and Meere write in a description of Closet that was submitted to IDeA.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cHowever, accessibility should be considered early in the design and manufacturing processes so that the responsibility of adapting does not fall on end users.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLiana and Mandy\u2019s achievement adds to Carleton\u2019s long-running success at the IDeA student competition and reflects our School of Industrial Design\u2019s strong emphasis on inclusive and accessible design practices,\u201d says Larry Kostiuk<\/a>, dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Design, \u201cas well as Carleton\u2019s commitment to accessibility within the university\u2019s Strategic Integrated Plan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Mandy<\/figure>\n\n\n

Balancing Creativity and Feasibility<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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The design process, Hui explains, is rarely linear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One starts by developing an understanding of a problem and attempting to create a solution, but most designers return to and revise their initial ideas frequently\u2014a stage that could go on forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere can be no end,\u201d says Meere.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cYou can tweak your design again and again and again.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cYou need to strike a balance,\u201d says Hui, \u201cbetween what you want to design and what\u2019s feasible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Although Closet is only a concept, Hui and Meere are open to trying to take it further, if the opportunity arises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, Hui is busy working full-time as a graphic designer for Indigenous Services Canada, and Meere is restoring mid-century furniture in her garage woodworking shop, both commission jobs from clients and pieces she finds and sells.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThe skills we learned in Carleton\u2019s Industrial Design program are transferrable to so many fields,\u201d says Hui.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cEven though a lot of the projects we worked on were products, we learned to seek feedback and collaborate, which is what I\u2019m doing now. That\u2019s what leads to better design.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Mandy<\/figure>\n\n\n

—
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A pair of recent graduates from Carleton University\u2019s Industrial Design program have won one of the top prizes in this year\u2019s Innovative Designs for Accessibility (IDeA) student competition. Mandy Hui and Liana Meere, who finished their degrees this past spring, developed a labelling system and app to help people with visual impairments select, sort and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":78124,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[17,19],"cu_story_tag":[1924,1918],"class_list":["post-78121","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-alumni","cu_story_type-technology-innovation","cu_story_tag-advancement","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-engineering-and-design"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/78121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/78121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98161,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/78121\/revisions\/98161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=78121"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=78121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}