Book Review
Design Meets Disability - Graham Pullin (2009)

The book 'design meets disability' is “about how the worlds of design and disability could inspire each other,” Graham Pullin writes in the introduction. As a medical engineer, Pullin worked with engineers and health care professionals to develop technology to assist disabled people. Later, as a design consultant, he led designers in creating consumer products. “I am struck,” he writes, “by how distant those two worlds still are, yet how much more each could be influenced by the other.”

Eyeglasses have been transformed from medical necessity to fashion accessory. This revolution has come about through embracing the design culture of the fashion industry.

Why shouldn't design sensibilities also be applied to hearing aids, prosthetic limbs, and communication aids? In return, disability can provoke radical new directions in mainstream design. Charles and Ray Eames's iconic furniture was inspired by a moulded plywood leg splint that they designed for injured and disabled servicemen. Designers today could be similarly inspired by disability.

Pullin also presents a series of interviews with leading designers about specific disability design projects, including step stools for people with restricted growth, prosthetic legs (and whether they can be both honest and beautifully designed), and text-to-speech technology with tone of voice.

I enjoyed reading some of the chapters in this book, particularly "Simple meets Universal", but it is not to everyone's taste.  The Wheelchair Dancer blog I was not totally impressed:
I believe in disability and disability culture. In Pullin's book, I see "inspiration" as being a force that erases the disability in order to accommodate -- and, yes, not necessarily conceal - the impairment. This perspective doesn't mean that dmd isn't a good book; the encounters real and imagined are fascinating. I would love to see any real designs that come of them.
I'm just worried that disability in design ultimately is lost in Pullin's text. Nor am I sure disabled people are among Pullin's desired/projected audience. That's a pity: designers won't get very far if we in our fullest selves -- are not equal participants in the conversation.
http://cripwheels.blogspot.com/2009/04/design-meets-disability-review-ii.html
I do get what she is saying - disability is not something to be fixed or designed out of existence.

The Utne Reader (July-August 2009 ) has a series of stories on design and disability, as well as a chapter from Pullin's book:
http://www.utne.com/Science-Technology/Design-Meets-Disability-Prosthetics-Arts.aspx

• Building a Better Arm: An Amputee Helps Engineer His Own Future, by Jonathan Kuniholm
• Prothetic Power, Aimee Mullins redefines beaty and the body
• The Future of Prosthetics: Expect the Impossible - but be Patient, by Katie Leo
• The Hype and Hope of Prosthetics, a coinversation with engineer Jonathan Kuniholm