Representing Children Living with Visual Impairments in the Design Process: A Case Study with Personae

Abstract

Assistive technologies (ATs) must improve activities but also participations of impaired users. Thus when designing ATs, especially for children, one should consider the diversity of users and disabilities but also the educational and societal contexts, as well as subjectivities (i.e. personal experience of disability, own motivations, etc.). Co-design is a method that encompasses all those features, but it is not easy to achieve with impaired users, especially when they are children. In the context of a research project on interactive maps for visually impaired people, we first conducted a field study to better describe potential users (visually impaired people, but also parents, teachers, therapists, etc.) and their needs. Building upon this field-study, we developed a set of design cards representing users but also needs, places, goals, etc. We then designed a workshop aiming to improve the knowledge and empathy researchers had about users, ideation step of the design process. We report on how these methods facilitated the creation of inventive scenarios, interactions and prototypes, but also how they helped researchers to think about their own design and research practices.