Reading Response – Week 11

In this text, the author asks the question: How often do we excuse the design of things that cater to disabled people because of the market for which it is intended? The design of such objects, it seems, mostly tries not to portray a positive image but no image at all, as if to hide disability or to regard it as shameful. We’ve come from an era where it wasn’t outrageous to say things like “medical products should not be styled” [p. 16] when talking about glasses to an era where glasses are stylized and in some contexts even considered fashionable. It is interesting how we’re slowly progressing with some disabilities to make the design of aiding instruments more “acceptable” to abled people instead of trying to hide the disability through design. For example, contact lenses could make bad eyesight invisible to the observer, but most people still choose to wear glasses over lenses, in part because of the accessibility of their design. Even then, there are disabilities where advancement in aiding technology is constrained by the need for invisibility (like with hearing aids), which I think is a shame. The author wants such instruments to also follow the blueprint of glasses, so that advancement is favored over discretion. However, at the same time, the pressure of making the design of aiding instruments universal means there is a serious risk of designers going too far as to sacrifice functionality over design. The first priority, I think, should be functionality, and then design, in the case of such instruments, so the overall user experience is better.

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