Personally, I liked this reading. The article Design meets Disability, mentions points which I hadn’t previously considered but are intuitive. While the author gave multiple examples of designs that were made to be more accessible while not highlighting one’s disability there were a few that stood out to me.
The most obvious product which is meant to help people with a disability are glasses. Like the article mentioned people don’t view glasses the same way as a wheelchair or a crutch or an arm sling. People see glasses as aesthetically appealing and as someone that wears glasses I haven’t seen as it as a disability either. I believe that the reason for this is mostly that glasses are very commonplace but that also they can be both aesthetically appealing and discrete.
The theme of aesthetically appealing and discrete is consistent for designs that are meant to also help those with a disability. The author mentioned the iPod but really it made me consider a previous reading we had. The previous reading discussed how something that is aesthetically appealing can be helpful for creativity and that people are willing to overlook small details. I wondered if a product that may not be as technically advanced as another can still sell more if the user-experience is far greater. I think this has already been shown to be the case with the Macintosh, and Macs in general, but also the iPhone which has a cult-following (including myself). While some people stick to the iPhone because of the apple ecosystem being very convenient I think a lot of people (and I am speaking from anecdotal experiences) like the user-interface both because it is intuitive and aesthetically appealing whilst being discrete, and because they have been using it for such a long time that it’s inconvenient to change. Many android phones have better features and some are cheaper and yet people, like myself, still choose to buy an iPhone.
Going into the final project now I want to try to make the design aesthetically appealing and keep certain parts discrete depending on the function. For example any buttons or switches that should be used by the players will be easy to see and everything else will hopefully add to the aesthetic whilst not being distracting. Hopefully I can have this done before user-testing so that I can change it before the final deadline if needed.