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Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations
from the Faculty of Social Sciences 1346

Universal Design Revisited
A Methodological Extension for Sustainability
MOYEN MOHAMMAD MUSTAQUIM

Ph.D. thesis supervised by (1st) Else Nygren, Dept. of Informatics
and Media, Uppsala University & (2nd) Mats Edenius, Dept. of
Informatics and Media, Uppsala University.
Failed (2016-04-08) by the grading board consisting of:
Andreas Hamfelt - Dept. of Informatics and media, Uppsala Uni.
Åsa Cajander - Dept. of Information technology, Uppsala Uni.
Henrik Artman - Media technology & interaction design, KTH.
Jan Lindvall - Dept. of Business studies, Uppsala Uni.
Charlotte Magnusson - Dept. of Design sciences- Lund Uni.

ISSN 1652-9030
ISBN 978-91-554-9479-7
urn:nbn:uu:diva-276054

Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Hörsal 2,
Ekonomikum, Kyrkogårdsgatan 10, 751 20 Uppsala, Uppsala, Friday, 8 April 2016 at 13:15
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English.
Faculty examiner: Professor Kaisa Väänänen (Tampere University of Technology).
Abstract
Mustaquim, M. M. 2016. Universal Design Revisited. A Methodological Extension
for sustainability. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from
the Faculty of Social Sciences 1346. 83 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.
ISBN 978-91-554-9479-7.
Around 1960, it was difficult for people with disabilities to enter official buildings, visit public
toilets or even opening the packages of alimentary products. It was seen as an unfortunate but
unavoidable situation. The architect Ron Mace started a revolution in that he founded the
movement of universal design, a design philosophy regarding everyone’s access regardless of
age or disabilities. As a result of this, for example, today we see ramps on almost every official
building. In today’s world however, a pressing problem is environmental, economy and social
sustainability.
This thesis investigates how universal design be updated and extended to be more adapted to
the sustainability problems we face today. This thesis includes six empirical and theoretical
studies. One empirical study that was made in an elderly home where patients with disabilities
spend their everyday life showed that the universal design principles need to by extended by
taking into account social factors and learning. Another empirical study in the context of video
game play showed that not all design principles were understood meaningfully during game
play indicating that the purpose of a design might not always be served by following the current
universal design principles.
To find a way of expanding universal design for sustainability, a theoretical analysis identified
five steps for conducting interdisciplinary research as useful. A new framework was then
developed to show how the new universal design concept could help achieve sustainability in
system design. This framework was then tested using two use cases where the result showed
that the new extended concept of universal design can be a trigger for sustainability.
Finally, a cognitive dissonance model with five identified design principles showed how this
new extension could be practices to address practical problems like persuasive design for
sustainability followed by a system development life cycle showing what needs to be done to
perform such extension.
In conclusion, this thesis has shown that by introducing a contextual interdisciplinary
approach to the analysis of the problem domain, UD can be extended to achieve sustainability.
Keywords: Human-computer interaction, Universal design, Sustainability, Design for
sustainability, HCI and sustainability, Interdisciplinary research, Persuasive design, Cognitive
dissonance
Moyen Mohammad Mustaquim, Department of Informatics and Media, Kyrkogårdsg. 10,
Uppsala University, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden.
Moyen Mohammad Mustaquim 2016
ISSN 1652-9030
ISBN 978-91-554-9479-7
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-276054 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-276054)

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To My Parents

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List of Papers

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This thesis is based on the following papers, which are referred to in the text
by their Roman numerals. Reprints were made with the kind permission
from the respective publishers.
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Mustaquim, M. M. (2015). ‘A Study of Universal Design in
Everyday Life of Elderly Adults’. Procedia Computer Science, 67, 57-66.
Mustaquim, M. M. (2012). ‘Assessment of Universal Design
Principles for Analyzing Computer Games’ Accessibility’. In
Computers Helping People with Special Needs, Miesenberger,
K., Karshmer, A., Penaz, P. and Zagler, W. (Eds.). Springer International Publishing, Berlin Heidelberg. pp. 428-435.
Mustaquim, M. M. (2015). ‘A reflection on interdisciplinarity
research in universal design toward sustainability’. Universal
Access in Information Society, doi: 10.1007/s10209-015-0425-0
Mustaquim, M. M. and Nyström, T. (2014). ‘Designing information systems for sustainability – The role of universal design and open innovation’. In Advancing the Impact of Design
Science: Moving from Theory to Practice, Tremblay, M.C.,
VanderMeer, D., Rothenberg, M., Gupta, A, and Yoon, V.
(Eds.). Springer International Publishing, Cham. pp. 1-16.
Mustaquim, M. M. and Nyström, T. (2014). ‘Designing Persuasive Systems for Sustainability – A Cognitive Dissonance
Model’. In ‘Proceedings of the 22nd European Conference on
Information Systems’ (ECIS) Tel Aviv, Israel, 9-11 June, 2014.
AIS Electronic Library.
Mustaquim, M. M. and Nyström, T. (2015). ‘A System Development Life Cycle for Persuasive Design for Sustainability’.
In Persuasive Technology, MacTavish, T., and Basapur, S.
(Eds.). Springer International Publishing, Cham. pp. 217-228.

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Own contribution to papers

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Paper I: A Study of Universal Design in Everyday Life of Elderly Adults
Description: In this paper the principles of universal design were analyzed in an elderly home where older adults who suffer different types of
disabilities of limited accessibility issues were the subject. The research hypothesis was that the existing principles of universal design were adequate in
a setup in which it was meant for the accessibility and physical disability
issues. In contrast, after the survey and data analysis it was found that there
were other factors that were missing as perceived by the subjects of the study
thereby concluding that universal design principles need improvement or
modification.
My Contribution: I was the only author of this paper and have fully contributed to this research article work. The research rationale, hypothesis,
method, and theoretical frameworks were established by me. Then I collected empirical data from an elderly home in Maryland, U.S.A. Statistical operations were run by me on the collected data from which the conclusions were
made to answer the addressed research question.

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Paper II: Assessment of Universal Design Principles for Analyzing Computer Games’ Accessibility
Description: The aim of this paper was to analyze how the established
principles of universal design act on a small-scale system like computer
games. The game accessibility was quantified, based on the different parameters from the principles of universal design, and it was found that the established design principles are not practiced well for determining the accessibility of computer games.
My Contribution: I was the only author of this paper and have fully contributed to this research article work. The research rationale, hypothesis,
method, and theoretical frameworks were established by me. I collected empirical data in the University of Maryland, U.S.A., and statistical operations
were run by me on the collected data set from which the conclusions were
made to answer the research question.

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Paper III: A Reflection on Interdisciplinarity Research in Universal Design
towards Sustainability
Description: In this paper the advantages of practicing interdisciplinary
research for realizing the influence of universal design towards sustainability
were analyzed. A theoretical framework showed how a holistic view of sustainability could be taken into account by expanding the concept of universal
design. It was done by showing that expanding the universal design research
towards interdisciplinary practice can be a key to realizing different factors
of the hidden quality of universal design yet to be learned.

My Contribution: I was the only author of this paper and have fully contributed to this research article work, including formulation of the research
question, analysis, structure of the proposed framework, and identifying
different steps of interdisciplinary research for universal design.

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Paper IV: Designing Information Systems for Sustainability – The Role of
Universal Design and Open Innovation
Description: The aim of this paper was to show how to integrate open innovation and universal design for increasing user-inclusion in the information-system design process for enhancing the outcome of a system’s action towards sustainability. For showing this, a framework called inclusiveinnovation framework was proposed and supported by a theoretical requirement engineering model. Finally, two different use cases were drawn to support our argument.
My Contribution: I was the first author of this paper. I structured the research question and formulated the inclusive-innovation framework along
with the proposed requirement engineering model. The way to see universal
design out of the box for achieving sustainability concept was integrated by
me in the proposed framework. The method was planned and selected by me
and I analyzed the first use case presented in the results.

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Paper V: Designing Persuasive Systems for Sustainability – A CognitiveDissonance Model.
Description: In this paper a cognitive-dissonance model for persuasive
design for sustainability has been established. Universal design and its principles were used to narrate five design principles for persuasive design for
sustainability. Maintaining dissonance is a challenge while dealing with controlling attitude or behavior of users in persuasive design for a focused problem like sustainability. Such an issue was addressed in this paper by showing
that if the proposed design principles are followed in design then it could
help reduce the framing effect in design for the achievement of sustainability
through persuasion.
My Contribution: I was the first author of this paper and contributed to
this research from formulating the research question, deriving the design
principles, and structuring the cognitive-dissonance model. The design principles were founded on the basis of existing theoretical frameworks and one
of the theoretical frameworks was also established by Nyström and myself in
earlier research. I also contributed partially by writing the discussion part of
the research.

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Paper VI: A System-Development Life Cycle for Persuasive Design for Sustainability
Description: At present the view of HCI (Human-Computer Interaction)
on persuasive design is taking a big shift. HCI sees persuasive design as a

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more advanced design challenge now in which diverse and complex sustainability problems need to be achieved through persuasion. It is thus important
to identify the important problem factors for organizations that like to produce multiple design solutions and a system-development life cycle (SDLC)
in the form of a systematic methodology that can be useful for this purpose.
This paper showed an SDLC for persuasive design for sustainability.
My Contribution: I was the first author of this paper and worked on
formulating the research question, establishing the SDLC, and contributed to
writing the introduction and discussion section of the paper. One of the theoretical foundations on which the proposed SDLC was based on was also
from my previous research. This was to the best of my knowledge a groundbreaking article in which the universal design concept built in the existing
theoretical framework was considered to design new SDLC as an example of
expanding its concept outside the scope of accessibility issues, and this concept was also generated by me.

Tobias Nyström

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Ph.D. Candidate in Information System at the
Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala
University, Sweden

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Other selected publications

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Mustaquim, M. M. and Nyström, T. (2015). ‘Information System Design
Space for Sustainability’. In New Horizons in Design Science: Broadening
the Research Agenda, Donellan, B., Helfert. M., Kenneally, J., VanderMeer,
D., Rothenberger, M., and Winter, R. (eds.). Springer International Publishing, Cham. pp. 39-54.

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Mustaquim, M. M. and Nyström, T. (2015). ‘An Iterative Information
System Design Process for Sustainability’. Presented at SIGCHI HCI &
Sustainability Workshop – CHI’15, April 18-23, 2015, Seoul, South Korea.

Nyström, T. and Mustaquim, M. M. (2015). ‘Universal design as a cause of
triggering innovation levels for sustainability-a deliberative concept’. In
Proceedings of the 19th International Academic MindTrek Conference
(MindTrek '15). ACM, New York, U.S.A..

Nyström, T. and Mustaquim, M. M. (2015). ‘Finding sustainability indicators for information system assessment’. In ‘Proceedings of the 19th International Academic MindTrek Conference’ (MindTrek '15). ACM, New York,
U.S.A..
Nyström, T. and Mustaquim, M. M. (2015). ‘Managing framing effects in
persuasive design for sustainability’. In ‘Proceedings of the 19th International
Academic MindTrek Conference’ (MindTrek '15). ACM, New York, U.S.A..

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Mustaquim, M. M. (2014). ‘A Framework for Universal Design of Media
Accessibility –From Ethical Perspective’. International Conference on
Communication, Media, Technology and Design, Istanbul, Turkey, 24 - 26
April, 2014.

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Mustaquim, M. M. (2014). ‘Accessibility Passport Model for Designing
Inclusive Games– A Requirement Engineering Viewpoint’. Proceedings of
the 5th International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics
AHFE 2014, Kraków, Poland, 19-23, July 2014.

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Mustaquim, M. M. and Nyström, T. (2014). ‘Open Sustainability Innovation—A Pragmatic Standpoint of Sustainable HCI’. In Perspectives in Business Informatics Research, Johansson, B., Andersson, B., and Holmberg, N.
(eds.). Springer International Publishing, Cham. pp. 101-112.

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Mustaquim, M. M. and Nyström, T. (2014). ‘Video Game Control Dimensionality Analysis’. ‘In Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Interactive
Entertainment’ (IE2014), Blackmore, K., Nesbitt, K. and Smith, S.P. (eds.).
ACM, New York, U.S.A..

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Nyström, T. and Mustaquim, M. M. (2014). ‘Sustainable Information System Design and the Role of Sustainable HCI’. ‘In Proceedings of the 18th
International Academic MindTrek Conference’ (MindTrek '14). ACM, New
York, U.S.A..
Mustaquim, M. M. (2013). ‘Assessment of Universal Design Principles for
Using Multimodal Interaction to Design Assistive Technology’. Proceeding
of 1st International Conference on technology for Helping People with Special Needs (ICTHP-2013), Al-Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, February 18-20, 2013.