Cutting steak with just one hand
Free Universe Education Foundation has been active in the promotion of universal design. Foundation chair Dan Tang, sitting in his electric wheelchair, holds in his right hand (his only functioning hand) a booklet with the nominations for the 2009 Universal Design Awards. Next he picks up a product known as "Another Hand," an already-commercialized product of which he is proud, and demonstrates how it enables him to clean off a plate of food with only one hand.
An ordinary round plate, but with an extra section sticking up on one side, Another Hand helps users push their spoons in the right direction, but also assists in collecting rice or vegetables and getting them into the spoon. Together with a wide-handled, lightweight, broader-than-average spoon designed in Japan to help children learn to use a spoon, these two are kitchenware that Tang takes with him everywhere; while sitting in his wheelchair eating with this setup, he attracts no shortage of strange looks, but being a keen promoter Tang takes these looks as chances to extol the virtues of universal design.
When Tang was promoting these two to the Taichung City Government, mayor Jason C. Hu quickly saw the value of the design. Hu's own wife had her right hand amputated after a car accident, leaving her able to eat only with her left hand and in need of just such an invention.
"Universal design" has become a battlefield on which Taiwanese design students from colleges around Taiwan have begun to compete, and this is in no small part thanks to the tireless promotion of it by Tang.
In 1991, Tang, who suffered polio as a child, moved north from Chiayi looking for work. Starting from the age of 25, he spent time working with Eden Social Welfare Foundation, a church, and the Taipei City Government, and even ran-unsuccessfully-for a seat on the Taipei City Council, before discovering online the wonder of universal design. In 2004, by his own efforts he set up the Free Universe Education Foundation, aiming to promote universal design and build a business on it. Asking himself how quickest to get people to understand the idea of universal design, Tang struck upon one answer-competitions.
After gathering sponsoring enterprises around Taiwan, Tang traveled to design departments at 55 colleges promoting both the concept of universal design and his contest about it, ultimately attracting 643 entrants to the first Universal Design Awards. By 2009, this number had grown to over 800. Universal design had finally begun taking root in Taiwan through the creative endeavors of these young designers.
"If I had only one hand, how could I cut steak?" "If I were a child or an elderly person, what kinds of problems would I have with meals?" When design students were asked these kinds of questions, a torrent of warm-hearted creativity poured forth.
The theme of the first awards was "eating," and the awards attracted much interest. One entrant, a "hot-dog helper," even made Tang himself gasp and ask "Who would come up with something this innuendo-laden?"
The designer was in fact Wang Weixiu, a student of the Visual Communication Design Department at National Taiwan University of Arts. Wang's girlfriend loved eating hotdogs, which in Taiwan are usually served on a bamboo skewer rather than in a bun. But every time she took a bite, the skewer would prick her, and she'd have to try eating it sideways or pushing the sausage up the skewer and getting sauce all over her hands. Wang thought up a way to attach something to the bottom end of the hotdog to help with pushing the hotdog up the skewer. This way, after every bite you could push the hotdog up, making every bite a safe and easy pleasure.
The prizewinner at the fourth universal design awards was this U-shaped pot scourer, designed with a channel down the middle that lets you easily clean both sides of a plate without having to turn it over.