The results of the project demonstrate how simple, inexpensive design can contribute to quality of life for those working with industrial processes in the home. All three proposals reflect an aim to bridge a gap between the industrial and domestic environment. In other words, they are the result of trying to make the home more flexible in the way that it accommodates the demands of work, not by creating boundaries between the two functions but by recognising that, for example, the same table will be required to eat meals and assemble electronic components.

The study raises a number of related issues. It shows, for instance, that inclusive design is not just about meeting the needs of older or disabled people. Economically marginalised groups like low-paid homeworkers are also excluded by design.

Most design for homeworking is currently aimed at the professional classes doing computer-based work. The hidden world of the pieceworker doing long hours of dirty, industrial work for pay below the minimum wage is rarely penetrated by designers. Even if appropriate design solutions are developed, who will pay for the new designs to be implemented? Pieceworkers cannot afford to do so. Will the company who supplies the bags of rubber products, for example, be willing to bear the cost of sturdier bags? Only if the new bags can be produced at the same cost as the old bags.

And should designers just aim to make life more bearable and manageable for pieceworkers? Or should they campaign to reform the economic and social conditions that lead to such working lives?