This reading gave me a new perspective on the intersection between disability and technology. I didn’t know that eyeglasses were initially made for the medical purposes only, so it was really interesting to learn how societal perceptions and stigma can change so dramatically over the course of time. I realized how powerful designers are in shaping these perceptions, as discussed in the reading. This is definitely something that engineers cannot achieve by themselves. As a prospective software engineer, I learned that my goal should not be just to make things useful, but to make them as simple and usable as possible for everyone in the world, like AirPods, irrespective of nationality and background. I’ve personally experienced how complexity can mess up the development process and even the essential purpose of a product.
For instance, I’m currently developing my mobile app that turns TikTok into studying. Initially, I wanted to integrate a social media feature where users can compete with each other in terms of how many questions they can answer in a row. But that feature turned out to be super complex, and spending too much time on implementing that single feature prevented the essential purpose of my app, which is to make studying addictive for students in the world. That is the reason why I decided to focus sorely on the scrolling system, since it is the simplest and most essential feature of TikTok that makes it so addictive. Through this reading, I was able to understand how important it is to make a product as simple and usable as possible for all the users in the world.