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Sooner or later each of us, with and without disabilities, find ourselves struggling to open a package, read a label, or operate a new product. The products we buy are supposed to fit the "average" user. If we're not lucky enough to be average, we have to adapt to the design. Depending on how well we can adapt, these struggles can be just minor annoyances or exhausting, frustrating, even dangerous ordeals.
Few product designers have disabilities, so it's difficult for them to understand how to include customers with disabilities among their intended users. But as market competition increases (and many designers are aging into disabilities), businesses are realizing that customers with disabilities represent a large and growing market that can't be ignored. But how can designers without disabilities include this diverse population when developing new products?
In 2002, The Wireless RERC, a rehabilitation engineering research center funded by the US Department of Education, began surveying people with disabilities who use cell phones, pagers, and other wireless products. To date, over 500 persons with disabilities have responded to the survey. The center is also conducting focus groups among interested survey respondents. Through these focus groups, hard-of-hearing persons, persons with low-vision, and persons with physical limitations explore the use of various wireless technologies and how to improve their usefulness and usability.
These are just the sort of customer that product designers need to meet. But as tempting as it might be, they can't just invite 500 customers into the design studio. So the Wireless RERC has begun condensing the issues brought up by these customers into short biographies of "personas" for designers.
Because they are based on the lives of real people with disabilities, these personas can have far more influence on designers than a stack of statistics or guidelines. And these personas offer a risk-free introduction to users that some designers find intimidating. The Wireless RERC staff have begun to introduce these personas to the wireless industry not as a substitute for meeting real customers with disabilities, but as a way of opening dialogue with customers and paving the way to in-depth communication and design development. As research at The Wireless RERC continues, more personas are being added.
Feel free to visit them anytime at their website:
www.wirelessrerc.gatech.edu/projects/research/personas.html
"This article has been made possible by funding from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) of the U.S. Department of Education under grant number H133E010804. The opinions contained in this article are those of the grantee and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Education."
James Mueller, MA, BID
Project Director, Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Wireless Technologies (“The Wireless RERC”)
www.wirelessrerc.gatech.edu
703-222-5808 (phone)
703-378-5079 (fax)
jlminc@earthlink.net
James Mueller is an industrial design consultant who has specialized in product and workplace design for people with disabilities since 1974. He currently serves several rehabilitation engineering research centers, as well as corporate clients. His website is accessible at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~jlminc
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