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Eight Questions for Graham Pullin

Graham Pullin is an interaction designer who teaches at the University of Dundee in Scotland. His new book is Design Meets Disability, out next month from MIT Press. I had a chance to ask Pullin a few questions about his book, how we might better design for disability and precisely why we’ve done so poorly up until now.

Design Meets Disability Graham Pullin1


Why do you think so few designers take up issues of universal design, or designing for disability? Is it a question of money, knowledge, a failure of the imagination?

As we're coming to money later, let's talk about knowledge and imagination. Many of the designers I spoke with did feel inhibited by not knowing enough about disability. No wonder, considering this is a territory that demands disabled people and other expert co-designers. So I think that it comes down to those already engaged in designing for disability to invite designers in (which will require a deeper understanding of design in return). As for imagination, disability is sometimes seen in terms of accessibility legislation rather than the source of inspiration that it could be. I wonder whether the very phrase "universal design" implies designing anything to be all things to all people, whereas the most inspiring projects are often more idiosyncratic and simple. In both cases, exemplars of design for disability will help bridge this gap, because design inspires design.

You argue rightly that glasses have made the jump from an object that once caused shame to one that is a high fashion accessory. Is there another that seems poised to make the jump? Morrissey's foray into hearing aides seems to have failed?

I think that hearing aids probably are the most likely to follow, although their current concealment is more akin to contact lenses than to glasses. Hearing impairment is far more prevalent than current adoption of hearing aids would indicate. But there are cultural issues. I have spoken with people who describe themselves as 'Deaf with a capital D,' a deliberate statement that their identity involves their deafness. This in itself changes the role of a hearing aid and should be allowed to influence its design. I have heard it argued that hearing aids and prostheses are already adopting fashion, but (to the best of my knowledge) not in the way that I mean–offering a choice of color is not enough. Other manufacturers are looking to wireless cell phone earpieces, as precedents of hearing devices without stigma, I worry that the current trend for silver-plastic moldings and blue LEDs wears its early-adopter technology too crudely. The HearWear project, exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum and featured in the book, included some alternative visions of what the future of hearing might be, in which materials and cultural references are employed more provocatively yet with more subtlety. I find myself intrigued by what fashion designers could bring to this technology. What exquisite touches might Paul Smith bring to a hearing aid? Perhaps even unseen details for its wearer's delight alone.

Is there a certain object that could most use a redesign?

I'm tempted to say that certain objects could use a design in the first place. But people with disabilities are just as diverse in their tastes as the whole population. So it's not that all amputees are dissatisfied with pink prostheses—with discretion being the overriding priority—over all other aesthetic considerations, but some amputees are. And it's not just about the physical design of devices, but also about how we interact with them. My own role as an interaction designer is to design the way that things behave as much as the way that they look. The interaction between hearing aids and furniture that might support conversation, the gestures available with a prosthetic hand, the expression afforded by subtle tone of voice in a communication aid: these are all issues that interaction designers could valuably contribute to and could help to redefine and redesign.

I love the way you muse about what might happen if Jasper Morrison made a wheelchair, or Stefan Sagmeister took up accessibility signage. It really made me wonder what they might do, but there also seemed to be a kind of challenge implicit in doing that in the book. Were you calling these guys out?

I too would love to see what designers like Morrison, Sagmeister, Ive and Chalayan might do. But actually I would not address this challenge to them directly, but to those already involved with disability, directing the development or manufacture of products, services or representing disabled people. Go on - invite them in! And from the very beginning, for their trains of thought, not just their execution skills.

Have there been advances since the book came out that you would like to have included?

There are a couple of projects that I have recently learnt about: Pro-aesthetics by Damian O'Sullivan included a beautiful bone-china eye patch with a traditional blue pattern. It is photographed being worn by a woman standing proudly in front of her dresser of Delft pottery: I love the way that this original design seems inspired by its wearer's own tastes. The Jawbone mobile phone headset designed by Yves Behar is the closest I have seen hearing technology approach the design language of eyewear. It would be interesting to see a hearing aid develop.

What do you see as the single greatest promise in the realm of design for disability? A designer, a material, growing interest?

I am not as inspired by any single direction as by more diversity. A wider range of complementary (even contradictory) approaches is what design for disability lacks and needs–appropriate because of the diversity of disabled people's attitudes towards their own disabilities... but, since you ask: Jurgen Bey is a designer whose work I find poetic and thought-provoking. It may not conform to a traditional idea of user-centred design, but is sensitive nonetheless. I find his Birdwatchcabinet for a Girl touching and wonder where it might have gone if the girl had happened to be disabled in some way. The materials known as technical textiles are interesting and offer new combinations of functionality and aesthetic qualities. As an interaction designer, I am also fascinated by speech technology as a design medium–in my own research I am exploring more expressive communication, with more subtle tones of voice, for people who cannot speak. There is a growing interest in customization. In traditional medical engineering this has always been an issue because of the need to accommodate clinical variation–but truly reflecting people's different tastes (other than by offering a choice of color) would be something else. With the industrial designer Martin Bone, I discussed how this might inspire new approaches to prosthetic legs. The designer's role might become more profound but at the same time more subtle: to help guide the wearer's choice of materials rather than to prescribe it, as a good tailor creates a bespoke suit with their customer.

You start the book with Ray and Charles Eames working on a leg splint for the US Military and watching some of those ideas they were working with move into furniture design. What might we take from other disciplines that could further the work of those designing with disabilities?

The thing that inspires me about the Eames’ leg splint is that this was not a case of other disciplines furthering the work of those designing for disability, but the other way round. Not the so-called 'trickle-down' effect whereby advances in mainstream design eventually filter through, but disability as a crucible of new directions for the mainstream.

Do you see a danger or a tension between some high design objects that will make life better for disabled people and what it costs to produce them? Some of the most exciting things in your book, chic glasses, blade-like prosthetic limbs, the Tissot tactile watch, must be out of the reach of many disabled people. Is inexpensive design rolled up in design for disability?

This is a sensitive issue and–rightly–a politically charged one. Disabled people typically are on lower than average incomes. But it was Steve Tyler from the RNIB (Royal National Institute for Blind People) who supported Tissot's development of the tactile watch. Tyler is blind himself and thinks that a tactile Rolex is just as valid as a low-cost tactile watch. At home here in Cupar, Fife, Scotland, you find me wearing my admittedly expensive glasses, drinking from a china mug. It cost around $2 from IKEA, but it is simple and beautiful–probably something to do with having been designed by Susan Pryke, who graduated in ceramics and glassware from the Royal College of Art. It's not just about cost. It's about design.

  • Published: August 30, 2009

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