New Tools for Disabled Artists
By Matthew Baranauskas
A Project presented to The Graduate Faculty California College of the Arts
Three Design Principles
Trying to figure out where to begin when you are designing for the disabled can be extremely difficult. The following three principles have been derived from my own research working with, and designing for disabled artists. Though these principles are meant to address the design of tools for disabled artists, I feel they can be just as useful in other areas of design.
1. Don’t Let Efficiency Drive the Design
When designing for disabled artists, it is extremely easy to get caught up in trying to create designs that will compensate for physical limitations, which may hinder a person’s ability to use a tool in ways that we might perceive to be the most efficient. For example, the fact that I so easily got caught up in trying to create a more efficient way to remove the caps from markers.
The ease with which a tool can be used is important, but functional efficiency should not be the driving force behind products that are designed with the disabled in mind.
Once I began to focus on the larger experience of artists, new possibilities for designs were revealed to me – efficiency was then considered after finding inspiration through working directly with artists. People who are disabled, in whatever capacity, deserve more then just products that have had operational-adaptations built into them. Sure, it is a means by which to make tools and spaces more accessible, but will they be meaningful to the person accessing them? Designers should focus on larger tasks, and ultimately design for the affordance of a greater experience – functional efficiency is just one part of that experience.
2. Understand the Precedents within Precedent Designs
Understand and embrace precedents: Many disabled artists already know what works well for them and what doesn’t. Working directly with disabled persons and observing the way they use and adopt tools to meet their needs can provide valuable insights to a designer.
Learn from history: There’s something to learn from what’s been done before. Every new design reflects the state of designs that have come before it. Along with knowing which tools work well for disabled artists, designers should also consider the history of the tools. When designers examine the history of tools they will uncover evolutionary trends within the design in addition to well established patterns of use and operation, which can either help or hurt a new design – dependent upon how well these patterns are investigated and interpreted.
Precedents within design establishes user expectations: Mirroring the form and function of pre-existing tools, if done well, can help make new tools more approachable and easier to understand, but if done poorly it can cause confusion, and even disappointment. If an existing tool has inspired a new design then it is important to know how it has evolved in form and function – knowing this can help designers in anticipating “types” of use. A counter example being one artist’s use of the Collage Roller as a brayer-like device/substitute.
3. Always Search for the Ability within the Disability
Seek out the unique context: A number of people with impairments experience the world differently, not just emotionally and physically, but sensorially. In a paper published by the Journal of Neuroscience, Tactile Acuity is Enhanced in Blindness, the authors suggest that dramatic tactile acuity enhancements occur in persons who are blind. Many blind people possess what could be called a super-ability to distinguish between the subtlest variations in texture. It is very likely that other super-abilities (large and small) like tactile acuity in the blind exist. Designers should search out, embrace and leverage these abilities within their designs.
Leverage unique abilities: Design has the power to either disable or empower – people are made disabled by the design, not by design. According to the social model of disability, a disability is a manifestation of conditions, or limitations imposed on a person with an impairment. More commonly, an impairment is seen as a diminishment of strength, value or quality, but if designers refrain from seeing an impairment in this light and they begin to see impairments as a unique context that is outside the norm they will discover previously unleveraged areas within design that feel new, but were always there. Slogans like “differently-abled” will become more then just slogans when designers seek out the unique context of impairments and leverage these different abilities.