Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Accessibility Design

To finish off the discussion about the EPS projects. I just wanted to say that I finally decided to be working on the accessibility project. I find it the most connected with users and giving great possibilities for development. I still need to wait for Pedro's approval, because what they are trying to do here, is to mix up people with different backgrounds.

The project is very open, first of all we have to choose one group of users with some accessibility limitations, mostly connected with their health, disabilities or age. I have some experience in designing for disabled children (the Sensations project we have done in the first year) and the Microsoft project we've done last semester in Dundee taught me a lot about designing for old people. So this time I wanted to focus on a different group of users. Again my reading of polish Polityka came useful. In the article from 16/08/08 "Wejście Smyka" I read about the new social trend concerning bringing up children. Obviously, the article was mostly taking about Polish society, but I believe it's generally true for most of Europeans. Parents take their children everywhere with them - to the restaurants, on the exotic holidays, on the board of planes. As they do not want to resign from their normal life, they combine parenthood with everyday activities. Which basically means that children are more present in a public space which is often not children - friendly. This creates problems not only for parents but also for other users. I'm sure many people experienced a flight with crying baby on board. Nightmare, isn't it? To be fair, the first thing I do while coming on board, I try to spot all the babies and take a sit as far as possible.
I think this is a design problem that gives wide possibilities - it can be a product, a service or some interior design solution.
It also quite interesting for me, as I may be a future user.

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