Week 3
Summary of Findings (so far) —
In conducting secondary research, I began by looking at what already exists in relation to products and inclusive design. A quick look at some of the larger image sharing / design platforms showed that much of the emphasis is on utilitarian design that aims to help people with disabilities meet their basic needs.
I then turned to Reddit, where r/disability provides a safe space for people with disabilities to share their victories, frustrations, and everything in between. I expected a number of posts sharing cool and helpful tools, but when sorted by top, many of the posts spoke to peoples’ emotional needs in the form of relationships, play, hobbies, and memes.
All of this made me think of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which states that the higher levels cannot be achieved without first fulfilling the lower ones. However, I feel that in the context of design, these levels of needs should be undertaken in parallel.
Specifically in the area of inclusive design, emotional needs like community and support are just as important as basic needs like mobility and transportation. This is further proven by the aims identified by UPCM and areas of conversation in online communities.
On this basis, a potential knowledge gap exists in the form of inclusive design that tackles higher level needs like emotional connection and play. With most of the emphasis on designing solutions to basic needs, I wanted to look into design that is attempting to fill the knowledge gap identified previously. Two such projects are shown below.
What I noticed about both of these works was that they exist solely as art pieces in exhibition settings. This in itself it entirely valid and I have an immense amount of respect for art that facilitates conversation and awareness. However I wonder if there is a space between art exhibitions and consumer goods where something non-utilitarian can exist in a public space such as the new UPMC building to address the emotional needs of patients.
