Exploration of Global Populations for Equitable and Universal Design

The objective of this work is to improve Universal Design opportunities through a better understanding of data on body size and shape from global populations. Products and environments that physically interact with users are often designed using anthropometric data that are either detailed but demographically narrow, or representative of a target population but missing the measures necessary for design. This mismatch constrains designers' ability to properly consider human variability and can lead to inequitable outcomes when designs are shared across more diverse or global populations. Universal Design calls for products, environments, and systems that are usable by the widest range of people, yet these goals are difficult to operationalize when available data do not reflect the intended users. This paper considers data on body size and shape from seven populations around the world: Chile, Egypt, Kenya, Germany, India, Japan, and the United States. A common set of anthropometric measures relevant to design was reconstructed for each dataset using data synthesis methods and then analysed using principal component analysis to characterize the dominant patterns of anthropometric variation. The results show that relying on data from a single country can compromise equitable fit, safety, comfort, and performance. This underscores the value of multivariate, population-informed approaches to Universal Design.