Inspiration

Microsoft Adaptive Accessories, one of the main inspirations behind this project The Surface Adaptive Kit, another accessibility initiative from Microsoft Project Ara, a modular smartphone project from Google A example of the variety of mobility canes suited for different use cases

The Surface Adaptive Kit, another accessibility initiative from Microsoft The Framework laptop, a recent & successful attempt at creating a modular laptop system to reduce e-waste and foster DIY culture An example of the different types of cane tips can be used with standard mobility canes, this DIY aspect of existing assistive devices played in a big role in the direction of this project

Collaboration

From the beginning of IXDS 2 I set out to talk to some of my old professors again to see if they could help out with aspects of the project that were out of my comfort zone, like physical computing and 3D printing. This would eventually evolve into a full-fledge collaboration with multiple IXD profs with varying areas of expertise. I even managed to break out of IXD and collaborate with Scot Laughton, the program co-ordinator of Industrial Design.

Map of all the collaborators I consulted throughout my thesis

User Definition

Primary audience: people who've been living with vision impairment for all or most of their lives and have adapted to it

Secondary audience: people who are temporarily dealing with vision impairment due to illness or injury and have not had time to adapt to it

Co-creation

After spending some time researching users and the problem space further, I realized that this wouldn't be enough for a project of this type.

I needed to consult real people and ideally involve them in the design process instead of just consulting them from time to time. This is how I met my primary collaborator, R.M. He is part of the primary audience that I identified and knowledgeable about the types of assistive devices that already exist. An ideal candidate.

People want solutions that are designed with them, not for them. This is difficult to pull off because it's often rare to find experienced designers who have first-hand experience with the problem space

Co-creation solves this problem and is enabled through in-depth collaboration between these two audiences

Prototype 1: a cap fitted with a proximity sensor and haptic to alert the user of incoming branches and other obstacles that they might bump their head on Prototype 3: an OS-wide proactive digital assistant with a focus on accessibility, enabling users to interact with their devices in a multitude of ways

Prototype 2: the basis for the final product, a smart cane with configurable modules that would extend the function of the cane in many ways Prototype 4: a body cam that would constantly scan the user's environment and relay contextual information back in order to supplement their existing mobility aids

Visual Identity

Function

User Testing

Recordings of user tests + findings

Testing conducted in-class with sighted participants.

They were blindfolded, handed the cane, then provided with instructions on how to use the cane. Their goal was to navigate the classroom using the cane in a traditional manner and also with the sensor module.

This was a Wizard of Oz prototype, so the functionality of the device was faked using a custom soundboard that stood in for the built-in haptics that would otherwise be providing feedback to the user.

Reflection

Lessons learned from this project + possible next steps

The beginning of the semester The end of the semester

I knew that this project would end up being expansive from the moment I started planning it. Thesis was something that I’ve thought about endlessly since my first day in this program and I’ve spent that whole time building up ideas for what topics I wanted to explore and how I wanted to structure the entire project. I’ve always viewed myself as a multidisciplinary designer and I knew early on that I wanted my thesis project to reflect that.

That’s the main insight that I’ve gained after I had a chance to reflect on the entire experience. I’d spent so much time in previous years thinking about the dimensions I could add to my project that even though I didn’t explicitly plan a multidisciplinary approach at the beginning of last semester, the project morphed into that anyway. I ended up drawing on many of the experiences that I’ve gained throughout the program, ranging from visual design to research, user testing, physical computing, speculative design, prototyping, coding, and much more. Thesis also served as an opportunity to further explore skills that I’d just started to learn or hadn’t had a chance to yet. I’m content with this because to me it means that I’ve internalized enough of the traits and skills I knew I needed to become a multidisciplinary designer that it’s now an automatic background process. I’ve reached critical mass with this endeavour, I don’t have to explicitly train or study for it anymore. I’ve built up the unconscious processes and habits to operate this way. I’ve faked it enough to make it, and now I get to make it again and again.

Another insight that I uncovered towards the end of thesis was just how collaborative this project ended up being and how much I’ve progressed with my social anxiety, public speaking, empathy, and other interpersonal skills in these past few years that I was able to successfully seek out collaborators to help me pull this off while juggling everything else that was going on in my day-to-day life. I never pictured that part of it when I tried to imagine what working away at a year-long thesis project would be like in 1st year. I didn’t realize that I’ve been making good progress with my interpersonal skills as well this whole time, from interacting with faculty and students at Sheridan as part of my IxDA duties to networking with professionals at large design events. Once again this part of the project became almost an automatic process for me as I had already built not only the habits but also the networks to seek out compatible collaborators who I knew would be able to help me bring my thesis up a notch.

Despite all this, there remain quite a few areas of improvement that I need to keep working on as I transition away from a student towards a junior or senior designer. I’ve learned that while my time/project management has improved lately, it needs to be even better if I intend on pursuing projects of this nature or collaborating at a larger scale in the future. The planning that I did for myself was somewhat effective, but I still ran out of time and resources on more than one occasion. I had to adjust my scope multiple times throughout the year, and not always because I had made progress or found insight, but rather because what I was trying to do was no longer feasible with my time and resources. I also came face-to-face with more risks than I thought I would. Things like not having enough people to test my prototypes with, technology problems (things like 3D scanning and printing not panning out as I’d hoped), and illness that would push back my schedule by a week or more. The final insight that I learned near the final stages of the project was how important strong presentations were, and how much I’d been neglecting that. I thought like a designer and thus believed that any fellow designer would immediately understand my project and have a positive perception of it. I learned that not only is this an unrealistic expectation towards designers, but that non-designers (or really anyone previously unfamiliar with my project) would have an even harder time understanding what I was doing. It wouldn’t be enough to just throw all my research and process up on the screen and guide them through a chronological summary of it. I had to take the time to understand my audience and cater the content towards them. I had to find a format/framework to organize my work with and craft a narrative that would familiarize a new audience to my ideas, processes, research, and goals rather than alienating them.

Going back to my project planning, I think that ultimately it provide me with the opportunity to gracefully wrap up this project at the end when I felt like I was running on fumes and had begun to lost sight of why I wanted to do this project in the first place. My initial planning around having a roadmap and several milestones or tiers I could reach ensured that I could pick the most feasible one in the final weeks of the semester and aim to have my project done according to those success metrics instead of letting myself burn out.

Appendix

All my work since September 2022 that informed the direction of this project, including all citations and references