Disability and Technology: A Critical Realist Perspective
Christopher Frauenberger · 2015 · ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility · doi:10.1145/2700648.2809851
Summary
This theoretical paper argues that assistive technology (AT) research typically operates from a reductionist philosophical position, matching functional needs with technological opportunities while failing to address the full complexity of disabled experience. The author proposes critical realism—a philosophy of science developed by Roy Bhaskar—as a framework that can incorporate multiple facets of disability and guide more holistic technology design. The paper traces historical conceptualizations of disability. The medical model (biological determinism) treats disability as deviation from biological norms, placing causality in the individual and providing the basis for segregation; while useful for deriving functional requirements, it reinforces a one-sided view. The social model, emerging from 1970s disability rights activism, distinguishes impairment (biological) from disability (socially constructed barriers), shifting responsibility to society. This materialist view positions AT as barrier removal—web accessibility standards embody this philosophy. However, many aspects of disabled experience cannot be addressed by barrier removal alone. The social constructionist perspective, rooted in post-modernism, examines how language, media, and social practices construct disability as a category of difference; the neurodiversity movement in HCI reflects this approach. Yet dissolving disability as a category leaves no conceptual space for the genuinely painful experiences of impairment. Critical realism offers a third position: reality exists independently of our descriptions, but we can only know it through fallible, interpretive, socially constructed models. Crucially, it focuses on underlying mechanisms rather than observable surfaces, allowing for "stratification"—layers of mechanisms where lower levels explain higher ones. For disability, Shakespeare proposed a critical realist formulation: "disability as an interaction between individual and structural factors." Individual factors include the nature of impairment, personality, and attitude; structural factors include others' attitudes, environment, support systems, and economic issues. The key insight is that "people are disabled by the society 'and' their bodies"—neither purely biological nor purely social.
Key findings
The paper develops a five-part research agenda for AT informed by critical realism. First, design must be multi-faceted and interactional, considering physical, biological, psychological, psychosocial, emotional, socio-economic, cultural, and normative dimensions simultaneously. The author illustrates with navigation aids for blind users: social encounters when asking directions are part of the experience—potentially stigmatizing or positive entry points—yet most designs ignore this dimension. Technologies always interact with the whole system of mechanisms shaping disabled experience, creating potential for unintended consequences. Second, methodology must employ diverse methods probing different levels—quantitative lab studies for physical capabilities, design interventions for social responses—with participation and reflection as essential elements. Participatory design becomes a form of inquiry, not merely requirements gathering, dissolving boundaries between design and evaluation. Third, evaluation must assess impact on the whole interacting system, not just whether technology achieves its stated motivation. The question becomes "what does it mean for technology to work well?" rather than narrow effectiveness measures. What appears positive for policymakers may not be positive for individuals. Fourth, ethics requires "in-action" embedding throughout projects, constantly refined as understanding evolves—never achievable in advance given the complexity of interacting mechanisms. Fifth, knowledge generation can resolve the "rigorous-or-relevant" dichotomy through vertical integration across strata—connecting, for example, understanding of spatial hearing with navigation practices with social behavior patterns. The OutsideTheBox project exemplifies this agenda: a three-year participatory design study with autistic children ages 6-8, co-designing smart objects with deliberately under-specified briefs. Rather than targeting functional deficits, the project takes children's "special interests" as starting points, aiming to afford positive experiences and support sharing them socially—goals that critical realism frames as complementary rather than contradictory.
Relevance
This paper provides essential philosophical grounding for accessibility practitioners questioning why well-intentioned, technically successful interventions sometimes fail to improve lives or inadvertently cause harm. The critique of reductionism applies broadly: ability-based design, despite laudable intentions, still centers functional abilities as starting points; design for social acceptance, while recognizing social factors, carries normative assumptions about needing to be "accepted." The critical realist alternative—considering multiple interacting mechanisms across biological, psychological, social, and cultural strata—offers a more complete framework. For practitioners, the key implications are methodological: evaluation must extend beyond task completion metrics to assess impact across the full system of mechanisms; participatory processes serve epistemic functions beyond requirement gathering; and ethical positions must evolve throughout projects rather than being fixed at ethics board approval. The observation that "technology use does not happen in a social vacuum" challenges designs that optimize for isolated functional interactions while ignoring social context. While philosophically dense, this paper articulates why accessibility work requires engagement with disability studies scholarship, not merely technical problem-solving.
Tags: disability studies · philosophy · critical realism · medical model · social model · assistive technology · research methodology · participatory design
Standards referenced: ICF