The Universal Design of the most well-designed Alien in the universe

This last week in EDTECH 506 Graphic Design in Learning, we learned more about how research in learning and psychology can be applied to design of instructional materials. It was fantastic, re-visiting theories from my days as a psych undergrad, as well as learning newer ones and tying things together.

We were then asked to "locate examples of universal design that address performance issues in an instructional context" and then provide justification. The "justification" part of the assignment was not explained, so I will do my best to use it to describe how my example fits Universal Design.

I quickly thought of IKEA's simplistic, almost comical, instructions. They include no words so that they need only print one set for all international markets. These "visuals" (as defined by the author of our book, Linda Lohr, being pictures with no words) truly epitomize "universal," and, being instructions, also provide a nice example of universal design used in education. They're also a nice example of the Design for All Universal Design philosophy which speaks to products (in this case, among other things) that reach as many people as possible without adaptation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design).

I found a great parody of IKEA's instructions courtesy illustrator Ed Harrington. The instructions clearly explain how to hatch your very own Alien, using simple enumerated steps that include clear pictures and, again, no words... everyone knows what the outcome of this product will be.