This year’s honorands include an outspoken leader of inclusive design, one of Canada’s most influential First Nations artists, a Canadian telecommunications…
Microsoft designer fell out of bed and found a mission
Photo: Reuters Premium
James R. Hagerty
, The Wall Street Journal
August de los Reyes, who has died at age 50, championed inclusive designs making products easier to use for everyone
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Falling out of bed wrecked August de los Reyes’s spine and left him paralyzed from the chest down. It also made him a better product designer, he said.
Mr. de los Reyes, who was working at Microsoft Corp. at the time of the accident seven years ago, became an apostle of inclusive design, an approach that involves finding people whose disabilities exclude them from an activity and then making things work for them. Those new designs can benefit the masses, not just the excluded few. An example is the remote control, initially designed for people unable to get off the sofa to change the TV channel and now used by almost everyone.