Design Meets Disability

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ducts: if Paul Smith (fashion designer) ''met'' hearing aids, if Jasper Morrison (furniture de- signer) met wheelchairs, if Durrell Bishop (interac- tion designer) met ...
Augmentative and Alternative Communication, December 2010 VOL. 26 (4), pp. 226–229

BOOK REVIEW

Design Meets Disability{ BY GRAHAM PULLIN

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Reviewed by JEFF HIGGINBOTHAM*

INTRODUCTION

REVIEW

The notion of design has been part of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) since its inception. The field has produced a wide variety of graphic representation systems designed to promote vocabulary learning and AAC device access. Interfaces have been designed to enhance dynamic page navigation and facilitate access to information. Devices have been produced in a variety of shapes and sizes, addressing a number of consumer needs and preferences. With the advent of technologies such as the iPhone and iPad, applications are now appearing to take advantage of these new and attractive types of hardware. Looking at AAC design over the years, one wonders: Upon what bases are these design decisions made? Are there – or should there be – a set of design principles guiding AAC development? When and how are the users of AAC technologies involved in the design of the communication technologies that they use for life’s interactions? Graham Pullin’s book, Design meets Disability (2009) reveals the ways in which design has been employed in Assistive Technology (AT) and the historic role of designers and consumers in the AT design process. Pullin’s thesis is that the historic functional focus of AT frequently comes at the expense of many other design values, particularly those which embrace culture and self image. He advocates for a greater role for the commercial designer with respect to design values in AT development and the inclusion of device users throughout the manufacturing process.

The organization of this book reveals the careful hand of a designer, in terms of the way information is presented to the reader. Using the metaphors of meeting and tension, Pullin seeks to engage the reader in a dialogue about the relative values of AT engineering and commercial design. In the first part of the book, six attributes of medical rehabilitation engineering are paired with six attributes of commercial design (see Table 1). The qualities and resulting ‘‘tensions’’ between each pair are explored in terms of a ‘‘meeting’’ or dialog between them. These pairings are presented in the upcoming section. Within the six sections, Pullin develops his thesis that the inclusion of designers and good design principles in AT development could significantly enhance the evolution of AT and the value of these products to their consumers. In the second section of the book, Pullin lends the sensibilities of several of the top commercial designers as to how they would approach the development of particular AT products: if Paul Smith (fashion designer) ‘‘met’’ hearing aids, if Jasper Morrison (furniture designer) met wheelchairs, if Durrell Bishop (interaction designer) met communication devices. By using the metaphor of a meeting, Pullin seeks to draw the reader into conversations between designers and AT devices and to explore the ways that a designer’s sensibilities could enhance, extend, and otherwise re-purpose these devices. Throughout the text, Pullin provides the reader with numerous historical portrayals, accounts of consumer experi-

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Design Meets Disability by Graham Pullin is published by MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 361 pp. *Corresponding author. Jeff Higginbotham, PhD, Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, USA. Tel: þ1 716 829 5542. E-mail: cdsjeff@buffalo.edu ISSN 0743-4618 print/ISSN 1477-3848 online Ó 2010 International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication DOI: 10.3109/07434618.2010.532926

REVIEW: DESIGN MEETS DISABILITY TABLE 1 Meetings. Design Fashion Exploring Simple Identity Provocative Feeling Expression

AT/medical engineering Meets Meets Meets Meets Meets Meets Meets

Discretion Solving Universal Ability Sensitive Testing Information

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behave in new situations, how their perception of and identification with AT may change as a result of non-functional design changes, and how AT may be re-purposed by their users as it becomes more embraced by its user base.

SIMPLICITY IN DESIGN For the more limited, if adequate, is always preferable. (Aristotle)

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ences, and gorgeous photographs. Like a good designer, Pullin knows how to engage and inform an audience through narrative and visuals. AESTHETICS AND IDENTITY In the chapter, ‘‘Fashion meets Discretion,’’ Pullin describes the evolution of eye wear in contemporary culture, noting that ‘‘eyeware’’ is perhaps the most advanced AT in terms of its social acceptability and design. Unlike many AT products, glasses are fashionable, worn without stigma, and are now a means for expressing cultural and personal identity; in fact, the underlying functional value of glasses is almost invisible to many consumers. The design trajectory of eyeware marks a progressive attentional shift from the functional to the aesthetic, and from a medicalized model (i.e., restorative) to a social model (image) of prescription. He also shows that the design development of ‘‘earware’’ (hearing aids) and ‘‘legware’’ (prosthetics) may be similar to that of eyeware, because both of these ATs are beginning to include a sense of visual aesthetics and personal identity in their design. Such a trend may be a part of the evolution of every AT. DESIGNER AND AT In the chapter ‘‘Exploring Meets Solving,’’ Pullin begins a discussion on the importance of including designers in AT development, by contrasting the solution-based design stance taken by engineers and AT specialists (e.g., Step 1: Problem specification, Step 2: Solution generation) versus a more playful exploratory approach taken by designers and artists. The notion, ‘‘solutions are usable, not just pretty’’ (p. 43) reflects the perspectives of many AT developers; that serious problems should be met with no-nonsense solution-based approaches. The author counters this functional zeitgeist by pointing out that playful, exploratory, and sometimes provocative approaches to design serve serious purposes by examining how users and their technologies

One of the most common design values in AT is the notion of universal design, that is, objects are designed to be used by a wide variety of people with differing abilities. In AAC devices, universal design may apply to the varieties of input methods and interfaces available on a single piece of technology. In his argument for simplicity, Pullin makes the distinction between a platform (like a DynaVox VTM1 or a PRC Echo2) and an appliance (like a Lightwriter3 or aDynaWrite1). He notes that platforms are the ‘‘swiss army knives of technology’’: multi-featured, user-alterable, unstable, and frequently updated. In contrast, appliances tend to be of a single integrated design, characterized by a restraint on specification, narrow in scope and of a limited complexity, and less likely to crash. In the AAC field, Toby Churchill’s Lightwriter provides a good example of an appliance-like technology that provides an easy-to-use, straightforward communication device for individuals with relatively good directselection capabilities. Pullin suggests that appliances tend to be more cognitively and culturally inclusive, in that the simplicity of their design may make them easier to understand and use. In the AAC field this comparison is complicated by that fact that, in order to make systems simple and straightforward, AAC devices must frequently provide a set of underlying features and capabilities in order to meet the multitude of changes faced by the individual over time and circumstance. The comparison becomes more appropriate as the AAC industry begins to address specific segments of its consumer base (e.g., individuals with ALS, aphasia, or autism) by designing technologies to meet their AAC needs.

EXPRESSION Technology today is the campfire around which we tell our stories. (Laurie Anderson, p.167) In the chapter, ‘‘Expression Meets Information,’’ Pullin highlights AAC when bringing up issues of

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J. HIGGINBOTHAM

AT personalization and user-centered design. He correctly identifies that the major goal in AAC and many other communication technologies is to achieve unambiguous communication, in which the information conveyed is unimpeded by the technology used. But this information theoryinspired goal has come at the expense of many other aspects of expression, including conveying emotion and communicating personal and cultural identity and attitude. For example, although the newest synthetic voices provide high intelligibility and a generically pleasant voice, they cannot be acoustically individualized or used for effective face-to-face expressive goals; thus, users have great difficulty making them part of their ‘‘personality.’’ Quoting Laurie Anderson, an avant-garde musician and performance artist, Pullin points out that the paralinguistic qualities of speech produce the individuating expressive ‘‘voice’’ with which we identify and affiliate as human beings. Thus, while progress has been made in producing more intelligible and natural sounding voices, they lack many of the personalized and expressive characteristics so critical for interpersonal communication.

throughout the development cycle and recognize the value of exploring designs for more than just their functional outcomes. He advocates for a ‘‘resonant design’’ approach, one that addresses the needs of people with or without a particular disability who find themselves in circumstances that call for the use of a particular technology. Resonant design is not a compromise, but a fundamental inspiration (p, 93). In the AAC world, it may involve looking at making mainstream technologies adaptable to persons with differing needs (e.g., using the iPad for emailing), as well as designing dedicated AAC technologies for an explicit user base in order to accomplish specific real-world tasks (e.g., the development of Visual and Contextual Scenes for persons with chronic aphasia; Buekelman, Ball, & Fager, 2008). Pullin strongly advocates for the inclusion of AAC users as participants throughout the entire design process, and particularly during the early phases. As an interaction designer, he is well aware of the tendency for designers to design for them selves or according to their simplified perceptions of the needs of AAC users. To design for a user group whose lived experience differs from that of the designer and engineer, active participation by individuals representing that group is required.

INVITING IN THE OUTSIDERS Pullin contends that the overarching medical/ functional orientation of AT risks defining (and, thus, stereotyping) people by their disability by providing technologies that are not responsive to individuality in terms of ‘‘diversity of culture, tastes, temperament, wealth, education values, attitudes and priorities’’ (p. 89). This schism between AT and mainstream design is also perpetuated in the definitions developed by professional societies and organizations. For instance, Pullin points out that the World Health Organization makes a clear distinction between AT and mainstream products, with the former defined as ‘‘specially designed equipment, products and technologies that assist people in their daily living’’; and the latter defined as ‘‘general products and technology . . . not adapted or specifically designed’’ (p. 92). Pullin argues that these differences in goals, attitudes, and definitions perpetuate an unproductive distinction between technology genres that keeps mainstream design attributes from influencing AT product development. If identity is inseparable from the objects that we use, what types of images does AT provide for any person if the principles of design focus primarily on function? To rectify this problem and mend the rift, Pullin recommends that the AT development process should include designers and users

CONCLUSION Pullin’s book is not a how-to guide. Other texts may provide a better basis in understanding interaction design (e.g., Cooper, Reimann, & Cronin, 2007; Moggridge, 2007). The text is more of a design manifesto, providing an overall compelling framework for understanding the role of commercial design in AT. Design Meets Disability may be compared to Donald Norman’s (1988) Psychology of Everyday Things, which showed how research in cognitive psychology can inform commercial design. Similarly, Design Meets Disability explains how commercial design principles can be used to make more personally identifiable and valuable assistive technologies. As important as Norman’s book was to technology design, Design Meets Disability could have a similar impact within the AT field. Pullin’s book and design philosophy have a lot to offer AAC research and development. For example, the AAC public’s attraction to the iPhone and iPad appears to be based not only on cost and function but also on visual attractiveness and identification with other users of this ‘‘cool’’ technology. As the generic informational goals of AAC are being met, it may be time for manufacturers to refocus their attention on making more personalized systems, based on

REVIEW: DESIGN MEETS DISABILITY

demonstrated priorities of AAC’s user base. Design Meets Disability may be the book to provide us with that roadmap. Notes

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1 DynavoxVTM and DynaWrite are products of Dynavox Technologies, Pittsburg, PA. 2 The PRC Echo2 is a product of the Prentke Romich Company, headquartered in Wooster, OH. 3 LightWriter is a registered trademark of Toby Churchill, Ltd. Cambridge, England, distributed in the USA by Zygo Industries, Inc., PO Box 1008, Portland, OR 97027-1008, USA.

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References Beukelman, D., Ball, L., & Fager, S. (2008). An AAC Personnel Framework: Adults with acquired complex communication needs. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 24, 255–267. Cooper, A., Reimann, R., & Cronin, D. (2007). About face 3: The essentials of interaction design. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Moggridge, B. (2007). Designing interactions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Norman, D. (1988). The psychology of everyday things. New York, NY: Basic Books. Pullin, G. (2009). Design meets disability. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.