Access + Ability

January 25, 2018 8:04 PM

How Design for One Turns Into Design for All (NYT) discusses the Access + Ability exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Featured designs include:
Nike's FlyEase shoes
Hands of X
ALLELES Prosthetic Leg Covers
Canes / walking sticks by Michael Graves
And more!

posted by hilaryjade (5 comments total)

So, what is an ear? It is part of the human body that transmits sound to the brain. So, why not a shirt in contact with the nerves of the torso if the ear isn't available? I once worked at a large dance club with a powerful sound system. I had a number of regular customers who were deaf. They would stand next to the sub-bass speakers to experience the beat of the music. Their sensitivity and the strength of the signal enabled them to dance with everyone else. Two steps, waltzes, disco, whatever. I love the idea of this shirt...
posted by jim in austin at 9:14 PM on January 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

[Deckard]"Synesthesia... you're talking about synesthesia..."[/Deckard]

I have been banging on about this since I first devoured the SF section in my local library and totally glommed onto all that 60s sensory enhancement/perceptual modification stuff embedded therein. (Took me a little longer to realise how those writers got there, but... anyway.)

Some time later, when I discovered Unix, I got excited by the rightness of the concept of the universal data bus - any device can pipe any data to any other device (or file or whatever) through a common software interface. Everything's a file. Of course, the practicalities of this are very far from the platonic ideal, but there's no actual barrier beyond appropriate implementation.

Of course, these are powerful ideas when one of one's own sensory channels gets broken, but that's maddeningly less than compelling for everyone else. Who, by and large, are the people who make things and, more importantly, pay for people to make things. You have to show that by making new ways to experience reality and to communicate that benefit those cases, you open up whole new ways to modify, enhance and explore the world for everyone

So yes, more like this please.
posted by Devonian at 4:56 AM on January 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

Love those leg covers!
posted by oceanjesse at 5:04 AM on January 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

Love this, managed to catch Cooper Hewitt's design for the other 90% exhibit way back when and they are my favorite museum.
posted by BrotherCaine at 9:16 AM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I love this stuff so much. I especially love the prosthetic leg covers, and the Nikes look like they might be useful for people who don't have disabilities, as well as for people who do.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:35 PM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]