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One Size Doesn't Fit All: On the Adaptable Universal Design of Assistive Technologies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2022

L. Aflatoony  and
S. Kolarić
L. Aflatoony*
Affiliation:
Georgia Institute of Technology, United States of America
S. Kolarić
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University, Canada
*
[email protected]

Abstract

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Occupational therapists modify mass-produced and universally-designed assistive technologies (ATs) to fulfill the specific needs of people with disabilities. We interviewed ten occupational therapists with experience in modifying ATs in order to understand adaptation processes. Our findings reveal the reasoning behind adaptation, common ATs that require adaptation, as well as the collaborative nature of adaptation. We propose a new framework called Adaptable Universal Design (AUD) that blends Universal Design with the need to adapt ATs in order to fulfill unique and specific user needs.

Keywords

inclusive designhealthcare designdesign theorydesign guidelines
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 2: DESIGN2022 , May 2022 , pp. 1209 - 1220
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2022.

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