Assignment 3

Visible impairments are often to a high grade affected by stigma and stigmatizing to the person. I have decided to talk about how we can use design and how design affects stigmatization towards people in wheelchairs. How can we broaden the “normality” area to include everyone.

At first we must realize that we are all unique beings and that we all have different needs and skills. With different needs i’m not talking about the obvious and common like shelter, water, food,  love and purpose. These we all share whether one wants to admit it or not. I’m talking about what one could consider unnecessary needs or leisure times. Things that make us feel good and feel alive. Here we humans are not common and there are a wide variety of tastes and likes. With skills i mean things that we have knowledge about or things we can do. Wheather one is impaired or not it won’t have the exact skillset as another person. Not even for the most “normal” things like walking or talking.

I think that the first focus should be to design for everyone. Because if a truly smart solution works for everyone then everyone is “normal” and using the device won’t be stigmatizing. As an example i will take my favourite hate object, the kitchencounter/sink. Why does it even have a standardized height? Is it purely for economic reason or just adapted to the median length?

Why can’t we have a counter/sink with adjustable height and with space underneath instead of a garbage can. So that the sink has to be adjusted by everyone using it and give the opportunity for perfect posture and ultimate availability to get in beneath it with a wheelchair. Maybe it can be voice activated, or just by pressing a button or even turning a crank for those able to do that why not all 3 alternatives and it’s a matter of choice.

To be frank there are some weaknesses with designing things like this. There are obvious economic reasons but also environmental reasons. Every counter can’t have an electrical motor. It’s just not feasible, we are already using more resources than what the earth can provide us with every year. So are we then back to square one? Do we need individual economic efforts for a home designed for everyone? Well at least it is better to perform such a design and implement it than do specialized individual design that has to be altered for the next person residing in the residence. That is truly wasted money since some home adaptations are designed to fit a specific structure. The best thing i can come up with is to collectively do it and subsidize investments in designs that covers everyone if possible or at least widen the range of “normality” to 99.99% instead of shrinking it like we are doing today.

Also believe that the stigma and normality factors differs depending on the situation and on the tool used by someone with an impairment that disables them from walking. If we take the wheelchair and the skicart and compare them. I would say that the reactions and treatment are way different which definitely affects the stigma and normality factor. For example must people in wheelchairs often go out of their way to get access to a building by using a side elevator or ramp when people in skicarts can even get ahead of the regular lineup at some resorts. Most things in the city life is adapted to a standing person like the sink in the toilet and the mirror behind it. While if you’re in a skicart you have an advantage over those standing skiers with a low centre of gravity which enables speed and quicker turns.

I know for sure that i would wanna sit in a skicart bursting down the hill. But i’m not as tempted to take on a lifestyle in a wheelchair in my everyday life. So why is it like this? If we design impairment tools for maximizing functionality or adopt society to fit everyone there won’t be any downside. With less downside more people are intrigued by it and the standard for “normal” widens and the stigmatization decreases. Take runners with prosthesis that can run faster than most people with legs, it is surely fascinating and there aren’t any negative vibes surrounding it because they’re abled. Something that surely took some people by surprise and with fear when they are abled they can’t compete towards the “normal” though their physical efforts are just as tough.

I think that this area of design and its integration in society has a long road to walk. Mostly because society as such is a slow moving organism especially if you look internationally. Though the knowledge and possibilities are there it will sadly take a long time to implement and integrate changes. About the design i think we will see a little bit of both designing for everyone to be a part of society but also specialized solutions with design to adapt to society norms. Though i think this will be a good thing in the long run because it will be very hard designing things that can truly work for 100% of the people and if we would just broaden our perspectives and widen the normality standards we might miss the % that opts out. By doing a little bit of both we can have progress for them too, while the overall situation will improve.

Assignment 2, the movie “Blind”

While watching the movie Blind i made some observations. Regarding errors in the movie i felt that her senses sometimes were exaggerated. Telling the height of a person when sitting down on the other side of the table is a hard thing to do even when you have eyes. But maybe it is possible and they stood up before the scene and she had an opportunity to evaluate the police officer. The blind girl has excellent skills in moving and running around even though she has taken some serious blunt force and is blind. One would think that her balance and ability to move would be way worse considering that vision and balance is connected. When using the earlier neglected tool she handles it and trust her life with a device she wasn’t trained with and i find it hard to believe she could determine the exact distance without practicing with the device. Though it is really hard determining if these “errors” makes any sense because it’s a high speed movie with almost no background or side information to better evaluate her progress after the accident. Though it feels like a very quick skills increase throughout the movie. If you compare her situation when almost not getting across the sidewalk in the beginning to the fight and fly scenes in the end.

I think the ignorance and lack of trust to her in the beginning is remarkable and surprising together with the cursing car drivers in the sidewalk scene.

I was also surprised that she didn’t seem to connected to the dog in the beginning and even left the home without the dog. Also the performance of the dog as a leading dog didn’t quite meet up to my expectations though one has to give the dog credit for saving her life in a very dramatic scene.

I like the part of the movie that enhances the blind person’s capacity and make it obvious that just because you lose one sense you can still accomplish great things. The movie also gives you a greater understanding of that blind people are discriminated in the societies we live in and that many everyday tasks are very difficult to accomplish. Though the movie is was really inspiring and i hope that it could raise awareness and increase understanding for blind people in our society.

Assignment 1: “Life can’t be as much fun”

Topic:

How much of disability is the attitude?

• from the person with the impairment?
• from people around him/her?

We all live our lives differently. Most often your life is very different to your neighbor’s life your siblings life and maybe even your partner’s life. Who define what life is about? What is life about? Is it even possible to decide, considering we all make our own journeys?

Media and advertisers may provide you with an idea of what life is about and what life shall contain. But what makes one happy is rarely the same that makes the next person happy.

Are media and advertising responsible on how we view and treat people around us? I claim that they are, to the highest degree.

I also say that those societal views creates an attitude that enhances the view of people with impairments as disabled. Because the uneducated mass believe that they cannot even perform some of the activities media, advertising and the society persuades us is important to do, to live a fulfilling life. No matter if the individuals even do these activities himself or anyone else around them.

This attitude is hammered into us from the early childhood in everything from disney movies to that you should fear the unknown. Lack of knowledge, fear, lack of education and awareness about impairments are a huge factor in the attitude we as a society will have as a whole. One wonders why schools aren’t taking a bigger responsibility towards how to act and treat people rather than the importance of knowing all the names of rivers in a country for example.

As for everybody going around their daily life they don’t want to be reprimanded or treated like they can’t handle the task they’re already up to.

If you really would want to you could point out things to almost everyone that they are not doing properly or that can harm them. But most people don’t take action to help people with such things, though they feel strongly inclined to help or act toward the situational lifestyle of an impaired person.

Depression comes to all people impaired and non impaired. But it seems to me that impaired individuals are generally more happy with oneself and has valued personal growth and understanding to a greater extent. At least those are my personal experiences and i think that the video also lean towards that feeling.

So how much of disability is attitude and how much fun can life be. Life can be as fun as we make it and have the opportunity too. I might believe that my life will be more fun if i could pilot a spaceship everyday. Though i physically have the possibility to take on such a task it doesn’t mean that i will have the opportunity to do so. Just because someone in a wheelchair can’t run doesn’t mean that life can’t be as fun as they want it to be or need it to be to be happy. Just because they wouldn’t have the possibility to stand up and run on the grass it won’t define how fun life is for him or her. Just because i have the possibility to run it constantly doesn’t make my life fun.  

Just because you want something it doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen but one can always try and sometimes trying will be the greatest part of the journey.

With that said i believe that we all can disable ourselves from doing things. But disability for the impaired has a greater threshold because they might disable themselves and societies norms and firm beliefs of what is needed for happiness, joy and fun doesn’t seem to include the impaired.