Design Meets Disability:
As I was reading, I found out that what stayed with me most was how deeply design choices are entangled with social attitudes, even often more than we admit. The author’s critique of “camouflage” design exposed how much stigma gets quietly built into objects that are supposed to help people. It made me reconsider how often “neutrality” in design actually reinforces harmful norms by trying to erase difference instead of valuing it.
I was also struck by the idea that design for disability shouldn’t be separated from regular, mainstream design. The examples of the Eames splint and Aimee Mullins’ prosthetics shifted my understanding of what inclusivity can look like. Instead of treating disability as a constraint to minimize, the reading frames it as a space for experimentation, a site where new forms, aesthetics, and cultural meanings can emerge. That idea felt surprisingly liberating, because it challenges designers to imagine disability not as a deviation, but as part of the full spectrum of human experience.
Also, the discussion of universal design made me question my own assumptions about what “inclusive” even means. Sometimes we equate inclusivity with adding features for everyone, but the reading suggests that true thoughtfulness might come from editing, refining, and listening to individual needs. It left me with a sense that designing responsibly requires both humility and boldness: the humility to recognize one’s blind spots, and the boldness to challenge conventions that limit how people see themselves.