During this meet, we spent about 1 hour talking in-depth about her life and interest. Last time, we asked her to pay attention to her daily life and take some notes if she feels that something is not accessible enough for her. So, we discussed it during this meet.

Bikes

She lives very far away from her school. It takes about 2 hours on her way back home every day by the metro. The worse situation is that the metro station is not conveniently near her home. Therefore, she has to walk about 10-20 minutes to the metro station every day, which is a heavy burden for her. Her legs often pain after walking for a comparatively long distance. Therefore, she and her father want her to learn how to ride a bike. However, because of cerebral palsy, she is a little unbalanced. Therefore, we anticipate that she might have trouble controlling the balance of the bike. Until now, she has not ever tried to learn to ride a bike. I suggested her to try to learn to ride bikes with protective measures. It may be possible to design some mechanisms or design a bike that is accessible to her.

Hobbies

She is very fond of traditional Chinese drawings. She takes part in a club in the school and gets trained. Since one of her hands is fully functioned, she draws very well and gets praised in school! In addition to that, she is also trying other hobbies like photographing and ceramic art in her spare time.

Major

She is now major in graphic design. Currently, she is learning to use Photoshop and will be learning to use Premier to edit pictures and videos. She can do all the work with her fully functioning hand. She chose this major because she is abler than many of her classmates since this major requires a higher level of learning and practice. And she loves to learn it. However, she also worries that she may not get a well-paid job compared to other normal students who learn the same skills like her. Also, she thinks English is becoming a barrier for her to live and work in Shanghai.

My partner is a deaf Chinese male who also suffers from a left-side-slight paralysis. Indeed, he has troubles using his left hand and has a balance problem which is bettered by special shoes. He knows how to read and write in pinyin and in characters; although he sometimes has troubles with complicated characters. His vocabulary is also very simple and basic. But he can still communicate with his limited vocabulary. He prefers to communicate through his mother though (with sign language).
He loves his computer so much and enjoys using it to watch movies, tv shows and video games. He knows how to use the computer well and he also knows how to navigate a dictionary (which he uses to look up characters he doesn’t get).
We thought of getting him a drawing pad which he can use to write down what he wants to say to people since he can’t talk and most people can’t sign. Since he has troubles with his left hand, to make using the pad easy, we thought of sticking it to a belt around his waist so that he doesn’t have to pull it out every time (and doesn’t have to use his left hand). We wanted to attach to the tablet a recorder in which we record in Chinese “I am deaf please write down what you want to tell me” for when he wants to let people know of his deafness when speaking to them.
Unfortunately, he’d much rather communicate through his mom and he is not very open to any other technology that can help him communicate with others. He is more comfortable with his mom doing everything for him.
We then switched our focus from his deafness to his left hand. Since he enjoys playing games in his computer, we thought about making the experience easier for him. Sometimes, in computer games you need to use the arrows and the AWDS keynotes; which is a thing he cannot do because of his inability to use his left hand while playing. We thus thought of creating a foot keyboard where he can use his right foot to control. We put together pads that by clicking at them with his foot can enable him to control the left side of the keyboard he can’t access while using his right hand to play with the right side of the keyboard.
It was really difficult to communicate with him and figure what he needed or liked. I guess I learned how important it is to try to understand people and communicate their needs and wants. You can’t offer help if it is not welcomed or needed and you should always check first if the person you’re helping wants that help or not. It was an all in all great experience even though we encountered a lot of difficulties along the way be it the communication or his simply dislike of what we were making.

1. Describe your partner

  My partner is called Orange. She is an energetic, open-minded, positive woman. She attended Hackability in the summer, and she got the product from that workshop, which is a cup holder. She is easy-going, and the communication between us is smooth. She is very participative in attempting to improve the prototypes we bring in for her to try on every week. She is also eager about the progress we have made with her umbrella holder, and her enthusiasm inspires us a lot.

Orange is very observant of life. When asked if there was anything inconvenient for her in our academic building, she gave her answer: some elevators for 1-15F have no handrails or lower buttons, and she can’t push the higher ones. Also, she told us that some floors do not have accessible toilets for the disabled, and even if they did, the slope of the step of the accessible toilet was too steep for her wheelchair to climb. She is good at finding many small things in life and can inspire my partners and me a lot.

2. What are their desires/challenges/difficulties?

  She is clear about what her problem is and what the requirements would be, which helps us define the question we need to solve. Her main difficulty is that when it rains, it is inconvenient for her to hold the umbrella with one hand and control the wheelchair with the other. She wants us to help her make an umbrella holder that could attach to her wheelchair to support her umbrella. She wants to put away the umbrella stand when it’s not raining. Also, she told us that she seldom goes out at night because she’s afraid the cars on the road won’t be able to see her wheelchair in the dark, which is dangerous.

3. What is your project? 1 paragraph description + Pictures or Photos or Videos

   Our project is a removable, collapsible, stable umbrella holder. It is mainly made of steel and plastic, as shown in the figure below, so it’s stable enough to support the umbrella. There are many rotating areas on the holder, so the holder can easily adjust the angle according to the needs of Orange. This product can help Orange to free her hands on rainy days, and she doesn’t have to worry about going out on rainy days. When not in use, the holder can be secured to the chair by straps.

  

4. Development process. Include photos and video(s)

We made the first model out of paper, determining where the holder should be placed in the wheelchair, how to rotate it, how to fold it. And then, we tested the second prototype made out of the harder material, a water pipe, to see how hard the material should be to support the umbrella and further discussed how to fix the bottom of the umbrella. During the second week, we used the second model to measure the length and width of some parts of the wheelchair and to determine in what way the umbrella holder would rotate.

    

Then we got the model with hard steel tubes, assemble the parts, and discussed how the holder could be attached to the wheelchair. We tried many different rotating angles and positions, and finally found a feasible model (as shown in the figure below). When not in use, the holder can be easily put away. Combined with the pictures of the wheelchair, we have decided which part of the wheelchair we are going to install the holder. 

  

During the third week, we met Orange and tested the prototype in her wheelchair. It turned out that the vertical length was too short and it needed to be increased.

Also, according to the requirements of Orange, the transverse length of the support should be shortened. Since each part of the holder had been completely connected, my partner and I decided to take the holder apart, reassemble and connect it. We removed the four iron pipes from the previous two prototypes, using the shorter one as the transverse pipe and the longest one as the longitudinal pipe. We used heated glue and screws to make the holder solid enough to hold the umbrella. So the length problem is solved.

 

Also, when the holder is not in use, after discussing with Orange, we decided to use a strap to tie it onto the wheelchair. We attached the hook and loop fastener to the pipe using heated glue so that it can tie the other pipe firmly.

During the final week, after testing it with Orange, I found all good but one part of the holder was still not fixed. Then we reinforced it again with a drill and hot glue to make sure the umbrella holder won’t come loose.

What’s more, when interviewing with Orange, she told us that she seldom goes out at night because she’s afraid the cars on the road won’t be able to see her wheelchair, which could be dangerous. To solve this problem, we put reflective stickers on orange’s wheelchair in all directions, so that when the lights hit orange’s wheelchair, the stickers will reflect light, making orange safer to go out at night.

5. What were your difficulties?

Our first difficulty is the length problem of the umbrella holder. We started with a model where the vertical length was too small and the horizontal length was too large. But our model is made of iron pipes and plastic, which is hard to separate. We had to take apart all the screws, iron pipes and other parts to design the most suitable combination of the material. And we had to make sure at last every part was connected tightly enough to hold the umbrella. This process requires patience and production ability. At first, I wasn’t sure I would be able to successfully reassemble the parts to adjust the length. But then, working with my partner, we gradually broke down the big task into some small tasks, such as first removing the tubes, then designing how to combine them, then assembling and fixing them. In this way, step by step, we achieved many small goals, and finally successfully completed the whole length adjustment process. In this process, I learned not to be afraid of the big task, but to break the task into small parts and actively seek solutions, so as to achieve the final goal.

Also, before the final week, we hadn’t let Orange test the product on the rainy days because of the weather condition (it wasn’t rainy those days) and time arrangement. Although Orange gave us feedback on the use of it after the final week, we didn’t have much information about the user feedback during the presentation. From this experience, I learned that I should pay more attention to the time arrangement in the next design process, leaving some certain time for users to give feedback.

6. What did you learn from this 4-week workshop?

First of all, I would like to thank Young for giving us such a precious opportunity to meet, talk to, understand and help people from different backgrounds. In this process, I’m glad that I not only made some contributions to help them improve their life quality but also made friends with them, understood their life status. After the completion of the project, we gave the umbrella holder to Orange. After a period of time, we received feedback from Orange. She told us that her friends all like her umbrella holder and wanted to buy it, and she also thought it was very practical and useful. Also, she appreciated the idea of reflective stickers, which helped her overcome the difficulty of going out at night. I am very happy that I can use what I have learned to help someone in need.

Second, I learned how to work as a team. Working with Ariana, we learn from each other and shared our ideas. We divided a project into four stages to complete it in a planned way and set goals for each stage. We respected each other’s opinions, worked toward a common goal, and did a lot of experiments to find out the best way. We actively encouraged each other even when we met difficulties. In the whole process of teamwork, I feel the importance of communication.

Third, I learned a lot about how to conduct the design. I am honored to have the opportunity to hear the excellent guest speakers teach us all kinds of knowledge, such as how to design products for user needs, how to communicate with children with intellectual disabilities, how to improve products after getting feedback, what the current status and the future of the activities such as Hackability is, and so on. I feel I understand the design thinking process [empathize(interview)–define the problem(give the conclusion)–ideate(ideas and get feedback)–prototype–test] and put it into practice during the 4-week workshop. It is a rewarding journey

7. The link to the presentation file: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1c8rkSclVnuvILxNL2SBONFhfhYq-gN0J-2rIKzg1IwA/edit?usp=sharing

Reflection for the 4-week workshop

• • • Describe your partner

      • My partner is a cool boy who loves to play computer games and watches movies on the computer at home.
      • He loves to play the small games that don’t require too complicated movement, as he has the constraint on the left side of the body.

    • What are their desires/challenges/difficulties?

      • He encounters the difficulties that when he plays computer games, he can’t play the game requiring both hands because his left hand could not move well. 

    • What is your project? (Description + Photos and/or Videos)

      • We’d like to propose a controller that could control by his right foot so that by substituting the left hand to the left foot, he can play games that require two hands
      • 
      • That’s our final version of the project. It has four pedals fixed on the board and each of the pedals is programmed with the key “W”/”A”/”S”/”D”. 4 wires of USB come to the USB hub and the USB hub connects to the computer.
        • The reason why we programmed W/A/S/D into the pedal is that many games require the WASD for the movement of the game figure, and our partner did not be able to play those games. So we want to use this board to help our partner to play the game well and try more different kinds of games.
      • Once the user uses the foot to click the pedal, the signal of that specific key is activated and it instantly reacts to the computer.

      • Development process. Include photos and video(s)

        • I came up with the idea of the foot controller, and we searched online for the hardware part of our project. Finally we found that Taobao has a store that provides the pedal which can be customized the key. We chose a size that is suitable for our partner’s foot. We also bought a USB hub for sorting the wires better.
        • After the pedals and USB hub arrived, we programmed it with the given tutorial by the seller.
        • We first assemble 4 padels in this way
          • 
          • However, we found that in this position, the user could easily be tired as the user has to move the foot position quite often.
        • Then we change the padels in this position
          • • 
            • We found that in this position, the user only has to change the foot’s direction from left to right when the user needs to click S+D. Apart from that, every click and combination could be click in the left food direction.

    • What were your difficulties?

      • Before the user testing with our partner, we thought that the biggest difficulty we face was how we should put 4 pedals in a way that is more convenient and efficient for the partner to use.
      • However, during the user test, we found that the biggest difficulty is that he actually did not like the idea of playing games with the left foot and it’s hard for us to know the reason. When we opened several games for him to test the pedals. Even with our instructions and demonstration by ourselves, he did not like to use the pedal for games, and the most difficult thing for us is that since he’s deaf and his handwriting basically can’t convey his meaning(he could only write around 2 characters at a time) We can’t get the reason why he thought the pedal is not useful for him. And his mother, who does not like him to play the games, was kind of unwilling for him to try more about these pedals. Since that’s the one and last time we tested for this pedal, we don’t have more time to test it. 
      • We asked our partner whether he wanted to keep it or not, and after several confirmations between his mother(who was not really willing to do so…) and him, they brought it home and said they might test it more.

    • What did you learn from this 4-week workshop?

      • Looking back at this 4-week workshop, I learned that communicating is the most important part of designing a thing for others. Since our partner is deaf and lack of the ability to write a full sentence. It was hard to get his thought and understand what he actually wants. I remembered the first time we met with our partner and his mother. Most of the time, the conversation was dominated by his mother, and my partner could not have a chance to speak for himself. We actually did not get much information about himself. After the first time, we tried to ask our partner without the presence of his mother, but it turned out that he could not understand our writing and it was hard for him to understand a full sentence. When he could not understand our meaning, he was anxious and really wanted to find his mom to speak for himself. 
      • If we could have more time, I think we might be able to find a really effective way to communicate with him. However, within such a short time, we found that it is hard to change his tendency to find his mother to speak for him and let his mother translate the meaning. 
      • Although our project eventually did not perform well and improve much of his life quality, it is a precious chance for us to know that through the process of designing, finding an effective way to communicate and knowing what the user wants is the foundation of design. Without these, all the designs we proposed may not work for our real users.
      • We would keep in touch with our partner to see if he has more feedbacks for our project. All of us have learned a lot and I believe we will learn from this lesson and improve more in the future design projects.