I agree with the point that there is a contention between designing for disability and fashion. After all, designing for disability is all about functionality and fashion/aesthetics should be considered a complementary part. However, I do think that sometimes fashion/aesthetics does have to be taken into account. Our lives are highly driven by shame and embarrassment, mostly because of internalized unpleasant experience regarding how we are seen by other people, so sometimes technology designed for disability has to serve a good luck to boost the wearers’ confidence. I don’t completely agree that we should incorporate the “spectacle design” into disability product as the author argues, because this contention I think depends on the type of product and its potential users.
In terms of weather the design should be universal or not, I think that universality should be a more a desirable achievement than a compulsory mission. If the goal can be achieved, then it’s laudable. Universality doesn’t have to be too complicated to cover a wide range of disabilities. The iPhone, and its peer iPod, is a very epitomic example. Such design with compact features successfully serve mostly everybody. Before the birth of the iPhone, nobody really thought almost every aspect of their lives could be condensed into one device until such a device was created. Nevertheless, if we treat universality as a mission then the amount of the design work necessary might not be worth it.
The level of accessibility and the quality of life is increasing. People have access to more and more well-designed devices that serve their needs; once they have used up all the features that satisfy their needs, there is no point for them to use those that don’t. In other words, users might not use, or even bring themselves to use, every feature available in their gadgets these days. Still, despite this, manufacturers have been competing with one another to provide a centralized experience to their users with their multimodal products, so we are moving towards such future either way. And they succeed in encouraging consumerism with successful and strategic marketing. People rush to buy devices that are promoted to serve in multi-facets but only utilize a few facets.