For the first year of Vivette, we did almost no designing. We sat in living rooms, bathrooms and clinic appointments alongside occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and the people they care for. We watched. We took notes. We were politely told, more than once, that the prototype we'd brought along was wrong — and asked to come back when we'd thought about it properly.
That year reshaped how we work. The product you see today is not the product we'd have made if we'd stayed in the studio.
Inclusive design isn't a checklist. It's a conversation that has to keep happening.
What occupational therapists actually look for
Occupational therapists assess a home from a perspective most designers never reach. They are thinking about the journey from the bedroom to the loo at three in the morning, in low light, with stiff joints and reduced grip strength. They are thinking about what happens if someone stumbles and reaches out — not in the controlled way a showroom photograph implies, but in the panicked way bodies actually move.
Three things came up in nearly every conversation:
- Grip diameter matters more than length. A rail that is too thick cannot be wrapped by a small or arthritic hand. We settled on 32 mm — the sweet spot recommended by the Royal College of Occupational Therapists .
- Mounting position is half the product. A beautifully made rail in the wrong place is worse than no rail at all. Every Vivette order ships with a positioning guide written with OT input.
- Surface friction has to work wet. Our hand-oiled finish was chosen (and re-chosen, twice) because it stays grippy when wet — unlike lacquer, which goes slick the moment a soapy hand touches it.
Co-design, properly
“Co-design” is a word that gets used loosely. Sometimes it means a focus group at the end of a project. For us it has meant paying clinicians and disabled testers for their time from week one, sharing prototypes before they were pretty, and being willing to throw work away when the feedback demanded it.
Our co-founder, Sophie Radcliffe, is a Senior Occupational Therapist. She doesn't sign off on designs — she shapes them. The position of every fixing, the choice between a straight and an angled mount, the decision to offer a 300 mm rail alongside the 450 mm original: all of these came from clinical conversations, not from a designer's mood board.
What we got wrong
The first prototype had a tapered profile that looked beautiful on a render. In a real hand it was uncomfortable, because the taper meant grip changed depending on where you held it. We scrapped it. The second prototype used a darker stain that, in low light, made the rail almost invisible against a wood-panelled wall — which a partially-sighted tester pointed out within ten seconds. We scrapped that too.
Both lessons are now baked into our process: every new piece is tested in low light, with wet hands, by someone whose body works differently to the designer's.
Co-design means being willing to throw work away when the feedback demands it.
For specifiers and clinicians
We work directly with OTs, architects and care providers on bespoke specifications, including bulk orders for social housing and supported living schemes. If you'd like to discuss a project — or request a sample to assess in clinic — get in touch via the trade page .
Read the Visible Voices interview with our founder , or visit the workshop notes to see how each rail is made. Browse the collection .