..to where my interest in Inclusive Design started.

As a historian researching the design of eyewear, I examined the relationship between medical devices, spectacles, and their wearers. I saw how the design of objects, and people’s connection to them, was complex. 

The historic example of the stigma surrounding National Health Service supplied glasses clearly demonstrated the importance of design, choice, and access to objects.  My MA thesis was on the topic of National Health Service Glasses, it was called Vision For Britain: The NHS, The Optical Industry and Spectacle Design – 1946-86

I was at the Royal College of Art during the time I started that topic of enquiry and my seminar room was across the corridor from the emerging Helen Hamlyn Centre, here Inclusive Design practice was developing, and since graduation I remained interested in their work and a friend of the centre.