Getting a Handle on Good Design : Catalogues: New York’s Museum of Modern Art assembles a collection of tools that make life easier for people with disabilities.

Two years ago, Hubbard Yonkers decided that what the world really needed was a better gardening tool.

After a day of digging with a trowel, Yonkers, 53, always ended up with sore wrists. Come to find out, so did many of his friends, particularly those with arthritis or carpal tunnel syndrome.

“The way a trowel is designed, you have to point it straight down like a screwdriver and grip it hard,” said the New Hampshire-based industrial designer. The awkward angle makes it difficult for most older gardeners to use, and nearly impossible for people with disabilities.

His solution? A new trowel with a shorter, curved handle that gives the user greater leverage and lets the wrist relax. It is lighter, since it’s made of plastic. And it will not conduct cold from the soil the way metal tools do, a relief for arthritis sufferers with cold-sensitive hands.

In September, Yonkers’ trowel became part of a newly expanded collection of objects for the disabled featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s fall mail-order catalogue. While some of these products are available elsewhere, MOMA’s collection marks the first time they are being marketed as a group to the general public.

The products are all designed to make the small acts of living easier--from slicing bread to buttoning a sweater. What’s more, none of these items looks orthopedic.

Which is exactly the point, according to MOMA’s marketing director, Louise Chinn. “Why should people with physical limitations have to use products that are clunky and unwieldy,” she asked, “when it’s possible to find elegant, streamlined designs?”

While it may be possible, it has not always been easy. “Up until four years ago, most of these items were only available through physical therapists and hospital-supply catalogues,” said Cara McCarty, a former curator at MOMA, now a director at the St. Louis Art Museum. “People didn’t know how to get them.”

And even if they did, some refused to buy from these sources. “I have arthritis, and never in a thousand years would I order from a hospital catalogue,” said Betsey Farber, director of design for Oxo, the company that manufactures Good Grips, ergonomically correct kitchen tools.

All that changed in 1988, when the Museum launched its “Designs for Independent Living” exhibition, the first major show to spotlight well-designed objects for the disabled.

McCarty, who curated the show, got the idea after seeing beautifully crafted products in shop windows in Sweden, long a leader in this field of design.

“We have a social-welfare system that makes the care of the elderly and the disabled a priority,” said Sture Elf, the marketing manager of RFSU Rehab, the Swedish firm that produces many of MOMA’s objects. “The government pays for the research and development of products designed to keep people independent and out of nursing homes.”

The MOMA exhibit unleashed a torrent of requests for the products, and in response the museum began selling half a dozen of them, including a pen with a wide grip. “We sold bucket loads of the pen,” said Regina Silvers, a MOMA spokesperson. “Sure, some people with arthritis bought it, but so did lots of others, because it was so comfortable to use.”

None of this is surprising to Patricia Moore, an industrial designer who is at the forefront of a movement called universal design. The idea, simply put, is that products designed with a specific infirmity in mind can be used just as easily by those without the disability. “The market potential is enormous,” said Moore, whose firm in Phoenix specializes in universal design.

According to industry observers, the Americans with Disabilities Act is likely to give universal design a big boost. Signed in January, the act aims to guarantee disabled people access to technology that could help them live in the mainstream. “And you can bet it will force manufacturers to consider how their products affect the less abled,” said Moore.

“We have 43 million Americans with disabilities and a rapidly growing elderly population,” she added, “and none of them want products that scream, ‘I was made for someone different.’ ”

Some products designed for the disabled have already made it into the mainstream. Take AT&T;’s Big Buttons telephone. Developed for people with impaired sight or limited finger coordination, it is now a favorite of yuppie executives.

The 20-plus new “designs for independent living” in MOMA’s latest catalogue, which has a circulation of 2 million, are all examples of universal design, chosen as much for their general appeal as for their usefulness to people with physical limitations.

Identified by a discreet DIL symbol, they include a goblet with a thick stem for easy grasping, a bell-shaped bottle and jar opener that can be mounted under a cabinet and used with one hand, a buttoner with a hook that will grab and guide a button through a hole and a food-preparation board with a clamp to hold bowls or vegetables in place for one-handed stirring or cutting.

To order the Museum of Modern Art’s fall catalogue, send $3 to MOMA Mail Order Department, 11 W . 53rd St., New York, N.Y. 10019-5401; (212) 708-9888.