Assignment 3 – Stigmatization, normality and design

I have chosen to discuss and evaluate how it can be possible to design in order to both minimize stigmatization and broaden the “normality” area for people suffering from different kinds of physical impairments. The main reason I have chosen physical impairments is that these kinds of impairments are the ones that are most often directly visible to other people. As a result of this, a bad (excluding) design for a product that is supposed to for example help a person walk, can make this person feel uncomfortable and makes it hard for the broader mass to ignore the specific impairment. With that being said, bad design can obviously have a negative effect on stigmatization on all different kinds of impairments but I just felt that physical impairments are the most affected one.

Designing to minimize stigmatization is extremely tricky. The very basic requirement is that the product that is being designed actually solves or aids the persons that intended to use it, the product should be useful. If a person is missing an arm the product should somehow help with the difficulties that is a direct result of the missing arms, for example picking up stuff. If a person is unable to use their legs, the product should instead help the person using it to move around, as a minimum. Now, both of the examples above can be achieved and created in both good and bad ways. If we want a product to help a person with a missing arm it might seem like an obvious choice to create an arm prosthesis which mimics the usual look, behavior and feel of a regular arm as close as possible, right? This is not always the case, there is a relatively large amount of arm prostheses that look partly like an arm but then have a large hook at the end. This is a solution that (partly) solves the issues related to the loss of an arm, for example the person can now lift bags etc. But this is a highly stigmatizing solution. The hook prosthesis is wide known also due to its appearance in horror movies, imagine how that might feel? To be portrayed as the main character of a horror movie is most likely nothing a physically impaired person would like and since the hook is something that separates the user from the general population this is something that will be highly stigmatizing. If we take a historic standpoint, dating back to as late as ancient egypt there is examples of arm prosthesis models which main purpose is to look like a regular arm, although these models were made in for example metal and were very heavy.  The focus with these products were to make the person feel “complete” again and to avoid stigmatization by making the persons impairment “invisible”. The problem with these products were the basic functionality, the fact that the metal arm does not provide any functionality makes it a very bad aid or tool and does in no way actually compensate for the impairment. Luckily, we now are able to create prosthesis for arms and other limbs which both look and behave very realistically, it is even possible to connect nerve cords and move for example an arm, a hand or a finger by using your brain very much in the way you would with a natural body part.

As I mentioned early it is very hard to find a good balance of actually aiding or supporting an impairment while also not making it look “abnormal”, here technology has helped us a lot since many of the technical parts have become smaller and easier to integrate. Even when considering other types of physical impairments and their solutions, for example wheelchairs, the same logic applies. It managed to (partially) solve the problem of not being able to walk/move but it does not avoid stigmatization in any way.

 

Stigmatization is really a result of what we, or the general populations, perceive as normal. The word normal in its very essence assumes that there is an opposite, something that would not be considered normal and this is where prejudices are created and assumptions about specific groups, individuals or impairments are made, but what is really normality? I would say that normality is largely based on majority, if the majority of people in our vicinity (country, city etc) behave in one way then that is considered normal. As soon as a group of people deviate from this behaviour in any way, they might be considered as abnormal. If this group later becomes larger the behaviour might be considered normal again. Normality in our society seems to be solely dictated by what the majority decides. Even though some people actually want to avoid normality, being judged as abnormal against your will is something that can be truly hurtful. Ultimately I would say that the more important part is that every individual feel comfortable and confident with who they are, and this is made more difficult if people judge and classify you based on your impairment or difficulties.
With the above in mind let’s consider the physical impairments again, many of these conditions can impair mobility and movement by the inability to use arms or legs to their full extent. People who suffer from physical impairments may find it difficult to for example participate in social activities as a result of their impairment although they really would like to and this is just one example of when the individual might feel abnormal and excluded from the general population. For this reason it is important to design with normality in mind, a wheelchair is a perfect counterexample where although the person is able to move again, their sense of normality is most likely not improved. Here more modern solutions exists for example the Exoskeleton which allows a person to walk in an upright position and behave in the same way as would be considered normal. The same goes for the prosthetic arms of today. Of course we can question if it should be necessary to adapt to the general populations view on normality but ultimately this is about including impaired people rather than excluding and improving their sense of independence and self confidence.

Assignment 2, Blind Movie

The movie Blind does a good job of showing many of the difficulties that being blind might cause while also focusing on how all other senses are affected and changed as a result of this. There were many parts of the movie that I directly could relate to things that we have talked about in this course and/or from prior knowledge.

I do feel that most of the scenes focusing on Mins lost sight were quite accurate in showing how it might be during your first couple of years being blind, the mistakes in the kitchen, bathroom and crossing of roads etc. felt difficult and I was able to “feel” how frustrating this might feel when someone suddenly becomes blind. As the movie progresses it becomes apparent that, aside from the disability, different parts of Mins body and mind has started to react and adapt to her visual impairment. This is where I feel that the movie becomes slightly inaccurate which is OK since it adds to the drama and general story. One thing i reacted to directly was that she seemed to have a supernatural perception of the room and the people in it through her hearing and smelling already after one year as blind. I might be wrong here but this effect of supernatural hearing and smelling does not come that quickly, it depends on factors like how young you were when the accident occurred or if you were born blind the effect should be even greater. In this case Min was quite young when the accident occurred but already after one year she can tell how tall people are, how they look and figure out the smallest details in the surrounding sound. This to me feels quite unrealistic and I do think that the time to get confident enough to trust your other, now more important, senses takes far longer time. Another thing connected to this (potential) miss is the fact that this “super-power” was quite irregular. In some parts of the movie it seemed as if Min heard everything but then at some crucial situations she cannot hear anything. Two examples would be that in one scene she opens the car window although it is raining and seems very shocked when she notices this, in another scene the suspect is clearly very close to min in a dark room, sitting really close to her. In all scenes before she were able to hear even when people breathed in quite loud environments, but now she can’t even hear, or smell that a man is in this empty house? She also mentioned in the car that he or the car had distinct medical smells.

The above mentioned inconsistency seems to be a regular problem in the movie, there are many cases where Min behaves in a way that opposes a previous behavior. She seems extremely confident when walking in known areas, maybe to confident and in other areas she seems entirely lost and unaware of people, object or persons in her vicinity. The most obvious example is when she is running and, although she gets updated through voice instructions, she knows exactly when she has reached the elevator and such. Minor things such as the incredible timing of the brick when hitting the suspect (in the end) is also things that I would question had this not been a movie made to entertain.

I did not really get surprised of any of her thoughts/abilities but I could feel her fear of being blind many times and that was something that I really thought was interesting. For example when she waited for taxis for hours and hours just because she was unsure when they came or if people were before her in line. I liked the graphics that showed how she might have used sound and smell to build a black/white image of her surroundings in her head, that gave an idea and how a blind person might perceive of the world around.

Being blind at the central station

We went to the central station in order to test how it would feel to be dependant on markings in the ground to be able to navigate. Although the white rills were easy to spot upon arriving at the central station, our first question was, how does a blind person find the rills at first?

The white markings cover the entire central station but there are some places where you cannot go by simply following them and this makes it possible to lose track of the markings. Aside from that, they do what they are supposed to since we managed to navigate from the busses down to the ticket machines and then to the trains. Although this solution is not flawless it works to some extent, the major problem, however, was other people. In the picture attached below we can see how the white paths cross the very heavily trafficated entrance to the central station main building. This is a problem. In this situation where people are stressed to catch a specific train they completely seem to ignore the fact that they are walking straight over the rills, without looking twice for blind people.  

The first time we walked on the rills it felt quite safe, mainly because we had each other. The second time we walked without any assistance and the experience became a lot more scary because of the above mentioned reason, other people running into you. This also became reality when crossing the entrance as a person managed to push us lightly since we got in his path.
We do feel that the rills are useful but not optimal. They clearly do what they are supposed to, leading blind people to where they need to go. The main problem right now might just be that “ordinary” people do not know about them and take no notice of them and the people walking on them. We both had seen them before and knew they existed, but had not given much thought about the fact that people actually relies on them to navigate through the central station.

/Andreas Lelli and Pontus Halldén

Assignment 1: “I feel really sorry for you”

Attitude can play a very large part in how severe certain disabilities are experienced. At its core an impairment can feel unfair and as something strictly limiting and negative but after a person has accepted and adjusted to the situation, attitude can be changed to see more positively on things that before only were negative.

Although the disability still is very much present, having a positive attitude can help a person to focus less on the negative parts and instead put more energy into the positive things that arise as a side-effect to the disability. This could be things such as people you meet, opportunities that have been presented or you get a different view on life which makes you value certain things in a new way. Some impairments might ultimately give you a richer or better life if you manage to control the most disabling ones, it does not always have to be negative.

Many of the persons in the video described how they were able to achieve a lot of things during their daily life, how they did things that people do not expect them to do. One example was this man who described how people regularly tend to ask him if he needs help to load the groceries into his car, mainly since he was sitting in a wheelchair. This is a situation where prejudices becomes very apparent, if a person is in a wheelchair, obviously he needs help. Although this might be true in some cases, many people with impairments have learned to cope with them and to adjust to them. When an impairment is new it might bring higher disability than after having lived with it for a while, I think that the video showed that the will, attitude and some stubbornness can do a huge difference in how a disabled person experiences their impairment.
The above mentioned prejudices also seems to apply to the non-visible impairments where, according to the video, people often feel sorry for persons who, for example, are blind or deaf. It is easy to reason in this way, a visible or non-visible impairment still, by its definition is something that is missing or abnormal when compared to the populations as a whole. But this does not mean that there is a reason to pity everyone with an impairment, as one of the women in wheelchairs said “I look back at people who give me that kind of pitied look and I think, I bet you probably got loads of stuff going on in your life that I would feel sorry for you about if I knew”. It became evident in the video that most of the persons interviewed in the video would not want to change anything (major) even if they could, they did not feel sorry for themself and thus does not want anyone else to feel sorry for them.