The Institute for Human-Centered Design (IHCD) is an international, educational, non-profit organization committed to advancing the role of design in expanding opportunity and enhancing experience for people of all ages and abilities. IHCDStudio, the design and consulting arm of IHCD, is a multi-disciplinary team of experts offering a full spectrum of design and consulting services focused on innovative design solutions for legally required compliance and best practices in Human-Centered/Universal Design issues. The IHCDStudio selects clients and projects based primarily on their potential for supporting the organization’s educational and research mission. Focusing on enhancing a project's usability, marketability, user satisfaction, and performance, the IHCDStudio team goes far beyond "just tell me what to do" compliance answers, creating seamlessly integrated, universal design solutions.
IHCDStudio project teams are custom-built to meet the specific needs of each project, and they feature a critical combination of internal and external expertise, drawing on an international cadre of regular collaborators who are helping to establish the state-of-the-art of Universal Design across the spectrum of design disciplines – from urban design, landscape, and architecture to interior design, industrial design, media, and information design. In addition to this extended network of external expertise, the full-time staff of the IHCDStudio are also supported by in-house expertise in occupational therapy, ethnography, developmental psychology, and assistive technology. Project teams are further bolstered by the inclusion of IHCD “user-experts” – professionals whose personal situations have prepared them to pay particular attention to the needs and concerns of people with disabilities and older people.