IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2013 - 11

devices and to remove structural barriers facing disabled people.
Similarly, I am concerned about where and how
class fits in this picture. While pullin is committed
to design that is simple and that elicits "engagement,
experience, and emotion," he does not devote any
page space to questions of affordability or democratic
design. presumably, designer "chairwear," "hearwear," and "eyewear" will be as costly as most products made by high-end designers. How does pullin
intend to reconcile this with the fact that the majority
of disabled people, due to the practices and processes
of disablement, are often at the bottom of the economic
ladder? An answer to this pressing question might be
found in a discussion of "diverse wheelchairs." In this
section, pullin discusses the work of Motivation, a
charitable organization that designs, builds, and distributes wheelchairs throughout the developing world,
using sustainable and locally sourced materials to the
extent possible.
Noting the creativity and innovation harnessed
in designing these wheelchairs, pullin asks: "Could
and should some of this diversity be brought back to
wheelchair design in Europe and North America, as
a tool to break away from conventional solutions and
open up new dimensions, or even as a goal in itself,
in order to increase variety and choice?" While this
question offers up tantalizing possibilities of mixing
up the relationship between the center and the periphery, developed and developing, pullin does not push
this line of questioning any further nor does he actually interact or engage with designers in the developing world.
Finally, in a section titled "identity meets ability,"
pullin brings up the concepts of "Disabled with a
capital D" and "Deaf with a capital D" and he states
that "Disabled" and "Deaf" can be seen as identities. Unfortunately, pullin does not explain what the
stakes of these concepts-as-identities actually are.
Capital D in both cases, especially in the case of
Deaf, signifies Disability and Deafness as an identity,
a way of life, an ontology. For example, Deaf people
often consider themselves to be a linguistic minority

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

SprING 2013

group with a "different center" than hearing people
(i.e., [4]). For such people, hearing aids are often less
important than access to sign language as a modality of communication. And so more welcome than
hearing aids would be technology or devices that promote the use of sign language. Along these lines, as
sign language is a visual language, there has been a
recent and sustained focus within Deaf Studies and
Deaf activism on the importance of visuality and the
visual: Deaf futures are visual futures [1] and institutes such as the National Science Foundation funded
Visual Language and Visual Learning Center at Gallaudet University (http://vl2.gallaudet.edu/) bear witness to this. As such, if designers wanted to design
appropriately for Deaf people, they would need to
have some context about what is important to members of that community -and elegant white hearing
aids designed by Jonathan Ives would not do the trick
(although perhaps a sign language dictionary on an
ipad would).
pullin's book is an engaging and accessible read.
As it is rare to find work about disability outside
the field of Disability Studies, pullin is to be commended for his efforts to place design and disability
in conversation. In directing his efforts at recruiting
designers to the field of disability, perhaps new collaborations and affinities will emerge. And pullin is
right that the stakes of designing for disability are
high: a wheelchair, even when renamed "chairwear,"
is not just another chair. I just wish that there were
more disabled people actually present in the pages
of the book.

References

[1] B. Bahan, "On the formation of the visual variety of the human race,"
in Open Your Eyes: Deaf Studies Talking, H- Dirksen L. Bauman, Ed.
Minneapolis, MN: Univ. of Minnesota press, 2005, pp. 83-99.
[2] C. Barnes and G. Mercer. Key Concepts: Disability. Malden:
Blackwell, 2003.
[3] r. Garland Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical
Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York, NY:
Columbia Univ. press, 1997.
[4] C. padden and T. Humphries, Deaf in America: Voices from a
Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. press, 1988.
[5] N. rose, The Powers of Freedom. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge
Univ. press, 1999.

http://vl2.gallaudet.edu/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2013