“Design Meets Disability”:
While reading this chapter, one thing kept popping into my mind, the story of my best friend who was diagnosed with diabetes when she was 4. Growing up together, I got to witness all the phases she went through to accept her disability. Her biggest problem wasn’t the illness itself but rather the equipment she had to “wear” as medication. When she was first diagnosed she used to wear an insulin pump that looked like the one in the picture below, except hers had longer tubes and the proportion of the device to her little body was much bigger, so naturally it was very obvious and raised so many questions that she started getting very self-conscious about it because other children were pointing out that she was a robot or that she needed to be charged like their phones:
Fast forward a few years, her insulin pump was upgraded to this one, the Omnipod:
The Omnipod is less obvious and is only visible if she is wearing short sleeved shirts, so it is easier for her to hide it when she wants to and display it when she desires. The change in her mental health was very obvious and she seemed to accept her illness more and slowly she started wearing tank tops to display her pump and show the world her “superpower” as she likes to call it.
I have always wondered why they couldn’t have designed a smaller pump for little children, or made it look nicer so that they wouldn’t be ashamed of it or feel like outcasts wearing it. Lately I have been seeing ads of sticker packs and covers to “style” the Omnipod which makes me wonder if this would make little children more accepting of their illness and less of an outcast.
I have always believed that designers tend to not care about the implications of their design when it comes to designing for disabled people, because for them it’s a need not a want so they would accept whatever is given to them. It was nice to read about examples of design that are more inclusive and more thoughtful of disabled people’s feelings.