Walkmen

Abstract

This thesis is the final result of the graduation project of the master programme Design for Interaction at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at the TU Delft (Delft, The Netherlands). The project is done for the Delft Institute of Positive Design in collaboration with Marten van Doorn from Bartimeus.

When glasses or contact lenses are not sufficient enough to correct someone’s vision, visually impairment is diagnosed. The Netherlands counts 345.000 people who are visually impaired or blind. On estimate, 2020 will count 380.000 visually impaired people (Keunen, 2011). This is an increase of 20% since 2009, due to aging and diabetes (Bartimeus, 2017).  Especially when it comes to mobility, visually impaired people (VIPs) are continuously challenged. They use a cane to detect passing obstacles and recognition points. However, the cane does not lead the route to these recognitions points which make the visually impaired in need for other assisting solutions. Dependency and autonomy seem to clash with each other: Assistive technologies provide additional certainty within the field of mobility but often taking away a piece of autonomy. Autonomy is defined as “freedom from external control or influence; independence” (Stevenson & Lindberg, 2010). Being autonomous is a psychological need for well-being (Ryff & Keyes, 1995), which will be the primary focus of this project. This result into the following assignment:

Assignment
Design a mobility tool for visually impaired people that lets them experience a feeling of autonomy.

New developments seem to fail because of their distance from real-world settings (Loomis, Klatzky &  Giudice, 2012; Maidenbaum, 2014). Besides, Loomis et al. states that many assistive technologies are a result of a solution to a practical problem and that the outcome is based on the type of engineering that is available. This approach to new product development is known as the engineering trap. Therefor the primary approach is to stay as close as possible to the real-world setting by designing for autonomy with empathy with the main goal to contribute to the well-being of visually impaired people in the field of mobility. 

This is done by looking the context from different angels: : the own experience lens, the VIP experience lens ant the expert lens-  This is done by doing research and design explorations. These explorations create insights of VIP’s daily life -including benefits and struggles- required theoretical research, own experiences (as being visually impaired), observations and interviews. This resulted in a list of VIP superpowers, mobility mindsets, main mobility concerns, four dimensions of autonomy a list for characteristics for autonomous assistive tools. These insights are translated into an opportunity to design.

In the current situation, being in control is an important aspect for VIPs to be able to know the route, walk smoothly and prevent mistakes, although the definition of autonomy is about freedom from external factors. There seems to be an opportunity to design for impulsivity within the mobility context. Therefore, the following question will serve as the leading question for the next explorations: 

Opportunity
Is there room for impulsivity while being in control?

To be able to understand the meaning of impulsivity in the VIP mobility context, four cycles of design explorations are done. Every iteration loop starts with a different definition of impulsivity based on the previous iteration. Next, ideas are generated and evaluated on autonomy. These iterations resulted in the final impulsivity definition, the three design characteristics and the design goal. The definition of impulsivity states that;

Impulsivity definition
Make a small mental detour.

In the current situation, VIPs have a number of fixed routes in their mind. They do need help in this route if they got lost in orientation due to distractions caused by noisy traffic, obstacle or noisy weather conditions. Mostly they ask for confirmation when they ask for help, to retake their control on their current orientation. It is established that one of the design characteristics describes that feeling autonomous is not about receiving less help, but it is about the type of help. So how can the design support VIPs in their mobility activity, instead of helping them? 

If VIPs feel supported, it will open the possibility that there is no need for 100% focus. So they will walk their route as good as possible and have the possibility to make a small mental detour by paying attention to the unpractical elements of the route. Therefore, the following design brief is formulated: 

Design brief
Design a supporting device that illustrates the current position within a preprogrammed known route on demand, that opens the opportunity for a small mental detour by paying attention to the unpractical elements of the environment.

The design translates this design goal into the concept design: Walkmen.

The design
Walkmen is a support tool which is a GPS connected voice recorder on your smart-phone. With Walkmen, you can track routes and create your mobility tool, which can be used as support tool.

The design is tested from different perspectives: my own experience, VIP’s experience and experts’ discussion. The perspectives are the same as those used in explorations done at the beginning of the project. Overall, the tests made me realize that the need for concept design is urgent. People are intrigued by freedom that the device provides, so they are able to make their own personal reference tool which is easily accessible.

As an additional deliverable, a booklet is made with principles for designers, who want to design for autonomy for people who are in need for assistance.

To conclude, daily life is not designed for VIPs, but designed by and for sighted people. Unfortunately, many tools for VIPs are nowadays designed by sighted people to provide assistance to fill the gap of the missing visual senses. Within this project it is found that the mobility tool for VIPs should be a support tool instead of an assistive tool in order to evoke a feeling of autonomy. Walkmen is a result of the approach taken which includes the autonomous design characteristics and, according to the validation, evokes a feeling of autonomy.