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It would seem that universal design – that is, design that can be utilized by anyone and everyone – is a growing trend that might soon keep in pace with other trends such as going green.

Apparently, end-users have had enough of designs – and design laws – that make certain things usable by some people but unusable by others. Let's take for an example the lowly toilet bowl. Most toilet bowls and public bathrooms are designed in such a way that they're virtually unusable by people in wheelchairs. What's worse, building laws in most places around the world think the only solution is to provide a separate bathroom for the handicapped. (Most of these building laws haven't been updated for decades, besides.)

It's therefore no surprise that - one of my personal heroes - Don Norman, design professor at Northwestern University and the author of “The Design Of Future Things,” is issuing a challenge to designers all over the world to design things that work for everyone – no exceptions.

It's a nice thing to think about – one day, the entire world will adopt design standards that allow everyone to fully utilize everyday items, such as bathroom fixtures and kitchen utilities. Anyone for a soda can design that can be opened with only one hand?

It's funny how anti-universal some everyday items can be. Most toilet paper holders, for instance, require two hands to change the roll. Some people, particularly the elderly and stroke survivors, often can only use one hand – and suddenly, the simplest everyday tasks become impossible.

The same thing can be said for many of our websites and consumer software. For instance, more than 100 million web surfers all over the world today are colorblind, and potentially can't view important details in websites due to subtle color differences. So in addition to the challenge of coming up with good web pages, web designers need to make sure that their pages are viewable by people with all sorts of vision deficiencies.

Fortunately, this problem isn't new – it's been recognized for a long time. In Scotland earlier this year, two students named Conor Scully and Adam Kielthy from Sutton Park school designed a “Web Browser For The Color Blind,” which allows colorblind web users to view any website without a problem. Similarly, Cal Henderson ( http://www.iamcal.com/toys/colors/ ) has a nifty online tool that lets web designers test whether their color scheme is viewable by surfers with different color deficiencies.

It's funny how students and freelancers come up with universal solutions more readily than multimillion dollar corporations, isn't it? Yesterday I wrote about Google's Project 10^100, which will grant at least $2 million to anyone who can come up with one of the best world-changing ideas. Google has received 150,000 entries from around the world, and I can't wait to see which ones will make it.