A new approach for the design of assistive technologies: design for social acceptance.

While assistive technology focuses on providing function to help people with disabilities overcome barriers to access, awkward and clunky designs often draw unwanted attention to the user. In this way, assistive technologies are not always designed with social situations in mind, and may contribute to issues of in-access, particularly in social situations. I am defining and developing a new approach, Design for Social Acceptance, to incorporate social acceptance into the design of assistive technology. The goal of my research is to make assistive technologies more socially acceptable to alleviate social misperceptions of assistive technologies and people with disabilities through improved design processes. I will conduct this work by (1) defining what design elements make up socially acceptable designs, and (2) by adapting and developing design techniques to incorporate social acceptance into the design process for assistive technologies. Thus far, I have conducted studies exploring how people with disabilities feel about using their technologies in social and professional contexts to gain an understanding of the socio-technical relations arising around assistive technologies.