How Designing for People With and Without Disabilities Shapes Student Design Thinking
Kristen Shinohara, Cynthia L. Bennett, Jacob O. Wobbrock · 2016 · ASSETS '16: Proceedings of the 18th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/2982142.2982158
Summary
This study investigates how requiring student designers to create technologies for both disabled and non-disabled users influences their understanding of accessibility and design thinking. Unlike typical disability-specific design approaches that produce technologies usable only by disabled people (perpetuating an "us vs. them" divide), the researchers structured a 10-week undergraduate design course where students had to satisfy both user groups simultaneously. Forty-two students worked in groups on one of two projects: Project A designed real-time augmented reality navigation for blind or low-vision users, while Project B designed real-time captioning applications for deaf or hard-of-hearing users. Crucially, each group worked with an "expert user" (a person with the target disability) throughout the course, meeting four times for feedback on brainstorms, sketches, paper prototypes, and high-fidelity interactive prototypes. Students also had to recruit and test with non-disabled users independently. Data collection included weekly reflective journals, design artifacts, interview protocols, and expert user evaluations. Analysis used both deductive codes from prior accessibility research and inductively generated codes, achieving strong inter-rater reliability (Cohen's Kappa = 0.79). The study examined how tensions between the two user groups shaped students' perceptions of accessible design.
Key findings
The requirement to design for both groups surfaced critical tensions between "functional" aspects (how the technology works) and "non-functional" aspects (social appropriateness, aesthetics, discretion, safety, stigma management). Students initially approached disability from an ableist, function-only perspective—asking "what functionality will address impairments?" while dismissing aesthetics as unnecessary for blind users. Working with expert users revealed that non-functional factors were often equally or more important. For example, deaf expert user E11 emphasized that her device "should be discreet enough so as to not give away her disabilities"—she did not want technology that would call "unnecessary attention to her hearing loss." Another expert user prioritized safety and not looking vulnerable when alone. These concerns challenged students' assumptions that accessible design was purely about functional access. Designing for non-disabled users alongside disabled users proved transformative. Students found common ground: both groups cared about social appropriateness (e.g., not looking rude by staring at a phone during conversation) and aesthetics. One group chose glasses over handheld devices because "holding a device up while talking... would be distracting for all parties involved." Student attitudes shifted significantly. At course end, 21 of 36 students reported designing for disability was "not as hard as they thought"—only 2 found it harder than expected. Students moved from viewing accessibility as "someone else's job" to seeing themselves as capable of creating accessible (not just assistive) technologies. As one student wrote: "I used to think that accessibility design is a separate branch of design, but that is not at all design."
Relevance
This research has direct implications for accessibility education and professional practice. The key pedagogical insight is that requiring design for both disabled and non-disabled users—rather than disability-only projects—produces deeper understanding of accessibility and challenges ableist assumptions more effectively than exposure alone. The functional/non-functional distinction is actionable for practitioners. Accessibility guidelines and compliance checklists focus heavily on functional access (can the user complete the task?), but this study demonstrates that non-functional factors—social acceptance, discretion, stigma management, safety perceptions—are critical for real-world adoption. A functionally accessible device that marks its user as "different" may be rejected in favor of less accessible but socially acceptable alternatives. The study also reveals that most design tools assume sighted, hearing, able-bodied users: paper prototyping assumes vision, few tools support speech-to-text, and students struggled to create accessible prototypes with standard UCD techniques. This suggests that design education and tooling need reform to support accessible design as a default practice rather than a specialty. Finally, the research challenges the segregation of "assistive technology" from "mainstream technology." When students designed for both populations, they saw disabled users as stakeholders with equal standing—not a special accommodation, but part of the diverse user base that good design should serve.
Tags: accessibility education · design thinking · inclusive design · user-centered design · ableism · design education · Universal Design · participatory design