![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jesse_the_kCassandra Hartblay responds to yet another design school challenge informed by zero experience or input from actual wheelchair users.
Originally a Twitter thread in dialog with Louise Hickman _louhicky. Hooray for the Critical Design Lab folks who preserve it on their blog!
CDL member
CHartblay reflects on the values and priorities assigned to assistive technologies, coining the term criptic innovation, to describe "design innovations that a crip user immediately sees as privileging ableist values over others."
Battery life for power wheelchair users is a significant limiting factor to mobility. If you want to be out and about all day, you have to factor in how many hills you’ll encounter (going uphill takes more battery power) and how far you’re likely to travel. And, like your laptop or cellphone battery, a wheelchair battery loses its capacity to hold its charge overtime, so a battery that can go for six hours or so when new, may only be able to last for half that time as it ages - and replacing one is expensive.
Designing a better battery, however, is an expensive prospect, requiring better-resourced labs and high investor input. So, it’s no surprise that designers innovate for what they perceive to be a problem.
https://www.mapping-access.com/blog-1/2018/7/15/criptic-innovation [… snip …]
I’ve taken to calling this kind of mismatch criptic innovation, that is, design innovations that a crip user immediately sees as privileging ableist values over others, and, in a play on words referencing cryptic, as in, difficult to discern.
The Critical Design Lab examines assistive technology with a disability justice perspective, with 12 projects currently as well as a blog and a podcast (with complete transcripts, naturally)
https://www.mapping-access.com/podcast
(no subject)
Date: 15/12/2019 11:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/12/2019 08:57 pm (UTC)Even when the sidewalks are clear, I don't trust my (huge, heavy, marine batteries) to get me around outside when it's below 0°F/-18°C.
Are laptop-like batteries (like those in
Was your scooter battling slippery sidewalks, or was it pooping out over distance?
Where's my propane powered chair?
(no subject)
Date: 17/12/2019 12:36 am (UTC)We're going to Amsterdam/Berlin/Brussels/Paris next month for two weeks, temperatures will drop efficiency.
Propane powered chair would be good, especially if it had a flamethrower accessory to direct at non-wheeled clueless humans.
(no subject)
Date: 17/12/2019 09:28 pm (UTC)Amsterdam/Berlin/Brussels/Paris sounds like a gas, and also BUMPY as all get-out. If I was doing that trip, I'd arrange to rent mobility device locally, in the hope that it would be more suitable for the terrain. Also means my own chair wouldn't have to encounter the destructive maw of the airline system.
(no subject)
Date: 20/12/2019 06:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/12/2019 02:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/12/2019 08:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/12/2019 08:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/12/2019 08:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 17/12/2019 11:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 18/12/2019 04:30 pm (UTC)