Design and Disability:Developing New Opportunities for the Design Curriculum

摘要

Design for Disability has been flourishing as designers and visual communicators attempt to address questions of awareness and accessibility. Despite this achievement, most design courses that address the theme of disability will focus almost exclusively on the functional or medical model of disability, one that locates in the individual a disability that needs to be cured or corrected. In this scenario, less explored is the social model of disability, a model that presupposes an understanding of the factors that contribute toward the disabling of individuals. In response to this challenge, in this paper we will reflect on a course that we have developed in the School of Design at Edinburgh College of Art.