Do-It-Yourself Empowerment as Experienced by Novice Makers with Disabilities

Recent HCI research has highlighted the potential afforded by maker technologies for supporting new forms of DIY Assistive Technology (DIY-AT) for people with disabilities. Furthermore, the popular discourse surrounding both the maker movement and disability is one of democratisation and empowerment. Despite this, critics argue that maker movement membership lacks diversity and that within DIY-AT, it is seldom the people with disabilities who are creating such designs. We conducted a qualitative study that explored how people with disabilities experience the empowering potential of making. We analysed online videos by makers with disabilities and conducted fieldwork at two makerspaces. These informed the design of DIY-Abilities, a series of workshops for people with disabilities in which participants could learn different maker technologies and complete their own maker project. Through analysis of participants’ narratives we contribute a new perspective on the specific social and material capacities of accessible maker initiatives

Open design : práticas atuais e implicações para a arquitetura e desenho urbano

Orientador: Evandro Ziggiatti MonteiroTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e UrbanismoResumo: O conceito de Design Aberto (OD) tem atraído cada vez mais atenção de pesquisadores, comunidades e empresas. Os seus benefícios são frequentemente associados à democratização do design, melhoria mais rápida de projetos, customização em massa e aos processos de inovação alternativos. No campo da construção, diferentes exemplos que levam em consideração o conceito do OD, podem ser encontrados. As possibilidades vão desde o compartilhamento de componentes de rápida fabricação e de baixo custo para a construção de casas (Wikihouse), passando pela fabricação de móveis (Opendesk) até as ferramentas de jardinagem (AKER). No contexto de comunidades mais pobres, a abordagem OD desperta interesse. Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar o conceito de DO como fenômeno emergente e suas implicações no campo da Arquitetura e do Design Urbano. Atualmente, existem poucas pesquisas sobre OD, principalmente se o limitarmos à prática da arquitetura. Proponho uma análise de pesquisa multi-método, utilizando estratégias qualitativas e quantitativas no estudo do mesmo fenômeno. A estrutura da pesquisa aborda quatro questões principais: (1) Como os diferentes aspectos de abertura afetam a fabricação de artefatos? (2) Como o OD se relaciona com o desenvolvimento sustentável? Quais são as limitações atuais e os caminhos possíveis para superá-las? (3) Quais são os desafios atuais para replicabilidade no OD e como superá-los? (4) Qual é a estrutura de uma comunidade colaborativa de OD? Com base nos resultados, é possível argumentar que que o OD possa alterar a maneira como os arquitetos e os urbanistas trabalham. Os obstáculos atuais, no entanto, precisam ser enfrentados antes que o conceito possa ser adotado por um público maior, especialmente nas comunidades mais pobres. Dos resultados transversais de quatro questões propostas, quatro sugestões foram feitas: (1) a adoção de uma abordagem de metadesign, (2) a adoção de projetos modulares, (3) a educação para a abertura e (4) o uso de microfábricas móveis como infraestrutura urbana. Por fim, a pesquisa contribui para as discussões sobre OD e visa construir uma estrutura conceitual para a prática profissional da arquitetura com uma abordagem voltada ao ODAbstract: The concept of Open Design (OD) has increasingly gathered attention amongst scholars, grassroots communities and companies during the last ten years. OD benefits are often associated to the design democratization, faster improvement of design artifacts, mass customization and alternative innovation processes. In the construction field, a number of examples that take knowledge and digital commons into account already exists. The possibilities go from sharing low-cost and rapid-assembly components for building houses (Wikihouse), furniture fabrication (Opendesk) and gardening tools (AKER)). In the context of a developing country, the OD approach arouses interest. This research aims to investigate the concept of OD as an emergent phenomenon and its implications to the field of Architecture and Urban Design. Despite the emergence, little research on OD currently exists, especially if we limit it to the scope of the architecture practice. I propose a multi-method research analysis, using qualitative and quantitative strategies in the study of the same phenoma. The research structure addresses four main questions: (1) How do the different aspects of openness affect artefact manufacturing? (2) How does Open Design relate to sustainable development? What are the current limitations and possible pathways to overcome such limitations? (3) What are the current challenges for replicability in OD and how to overcome them? (4) What is the structure of an OD collaborative community? How and Why users collaborate? Based on the findings, it is possible to argue for the viability of OD to change the way architects and urban designers work. Current hurdles however need to be tackled before it can be adopted by a larger audience, especially in poorer communities. From cross-cutting results of four RQs, four suggestions were made: (1) the adoption of a metadesign approach, (2) the adoption of modular designs, (3) the education for openness and (4) mobile microfactories as urban infrastructure. The research contributes to discussions on Open Design and aims to build a conceptual framework for the professional practice within the emergence of ODDoutoradoArquitetura, Tecnologia e CidadeDoutor em Arquitetura, Tecnologia e Cidade01-P-04375-2015CAPE

Documenting Downloadable Assistive Technologies

This major research project explores Downloadable Assistive Technologies (DAT) and the possibilities as well as the limitations of publishing and fabricating DAT through online 3D printing communities. A design probe was used for this research within the context of Thingiverse, in the form of a 3D printed dog wheelchair design probe – the FiGO Dog Wheelchair. FiGO enabled an exploration of issues of design and communication of DAT. Through research involving both end users as well as a health professional, as well as interactions within the FiGO project page on Thingiverse, criteria for communicating DAT published on Thingiverse were developed, and a second FiGO project page reflecting these criteria was prototyped and evaluated. It is concluded that DAT could potentially benefit most greatly from a structured set of guidelines of use and communication of risks in the form of a design brief, and that there are specific considerations to developing a meaningful design brief for DAT including: 1) Tell the story of the design, 2) Do not make assumptions about the end user, 3) Clear instruction about the design use, 4) Inclusion of source files to enable user participation and extension of the design

Conflicts, integration, hybridization of subcultures: An ecological approach to the case of queercore

This paper investigates the case study of queercore, providing a socio-historical analysis of its subcultural production, in the terms of what Michel Foucault has called archaeology of knowledge (1969). In particular, we will focus on: the self-definition of the movement; the conflicts between the two merged worlds of punk and queer culture; the \u201cinternal-subcultural\u201d conflicts between both queercore and punk, and between queercore and gay\lesbian music culture; the political aspects of differentiation. In the conclusion, we will offer an innovative theoretical proposal about the interpretation of subcultures in ecological and semiotic terms, combining the contribution of the American sociologist Andrew Abbot and of the Russian semiologist Jurij Michajlovi\u10d Lotma

e-NABLE: DIY-AT Production in a Multi-Stakeholder System

The e-NABLE community is a distributed collaborative volunteer effort to make upper-limb assistive technology devices available to end users. e-NABLE represents a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach to traditional prosthetic care. In order to learn about the attitudes and challenges of stakeholders working in and around e-NABLE, we conducted interviews with 12 volunteers in the e-NABLE movement and 3 clinicians. We found that volunteers derive a rich set of benefits from this form of altruistic activity; that both volunteers and clinicians recognize that end users benefit from aesthetic customization and personal choice in device selection; and that volunteers and clinicians bring separate, but potentially complementary, skills to bear on the processes of device provision. Based on these findings, we outline potential ways for volunteers and clinicians to optimize their talents and knowledge around the end goal of increased positive patient outcomes

The Global Care Ecosystems of 3D Printed Assistive Devices

The popularity of 3D printed assistive technology has led to the emergence of new ecosystems of care, where multiple stakeholders (makers, clinicians, and recipients with disabilities) work toward creating new upper limb prosthetic devices. However, despite the increasing growth, we currently know little about the differences between these care ecosystems. Medical regulations and the prevailing culture have greatly impacted how ecosystems are structured and stakeholders work together, including whether clinicians and makers collaborate. To better understand these care ecosystems, we interviewed a range of stakeholders from multiple countries, including Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, France, India, Mexico, and the U.S. Our broad analysis allowed us to uncover different working examples of how multiple stakeholders collaborate within these care ecosystems and the main challenges they face. Through our study, we were able to uncover that the ecosystems with multi-stakeholder collaborations exist (something prior work had not seen), and these ecosystems showed increased success and impact. We also identified some of the key follow-up practices to reduce device abandonment. Of particular importance are to have ecosystems put in place follow up practices that integrate formal agreements and compensations for participation (which do not need to be just monetary). We identified that these features helped to ensure multi-stakeholder involvement and ecosystem sustainability. We finished the paper with socio-technical recommendations to create vibrant care ecosystems that include multiple stakeholders in the production of 3D printed assistive devices

Break, Make, Retake: Interrogating the Social and Historical Dimensions of Making as a Design Practice

Making and digital fabrication technologies are the focus of bold promises. Among the most tempting are that these activities and processes require little initial skill, knowledge, and expertise. Instead, they enable their acquisition, opening them up to everyone. Makerspaces and fab labs would blur the identities between professional and amateur, designer and engineer, maker and hacker, ushering in a broad-based de-professionalization. Prototyping and digital fabrication would unite design and manufacturing in ways that resemble and revive traditional craftwork. These activities and processes promise the reindustrialization of places where manufacturing has disappeared. These promises deploy historical categories and conditionsexpertise, design, craft production, manufacturing, post- industrial urbanismwhile claiming to transform them. This dissertation demonstrates how these proposals and narratives rely on imaginaries in which countercultural practices become mainstream by presenting a threefold argument. First, making and digital fabrication sustain supportive environments that reconfigure contemporary design practice. Second, making and digital fabrication simultaneously reshape the categories of professional, amateur, work, leisure, and expertise; but not always in the ways its proponents suggest. Third, as making and digital fabrication propagate, they reproduce traditional practices and values, negating much of their countercultural and alternative capacities. The dissertation supports these claims through a multi-sited and multinational ethnographic investigation of the historical and social effects of making and digital fabrication on design practice and the people and places enacting. The study lies at the intersection of science and technology studies, human-computer interaction, and design research. In addressing the argument throughout this scholarship, it explores three central themes: (1) the idea that making and digital fabrication lead to instant materialization of design while re-uniting design with manufacturing; (2) the amount of skill and expertise expected for participation in these practices and how these are encoded in rhetoric and in practice; and (3) the material and social infrastructures that configure making as a design practice. The dissertation demonstrates that that the perceived marginality of making, maker cultures, digital fabrication allows for its bolder promises to thrive invisibly by concealing other social issues, while the societal contributions of this technoculture say something different on the surface

A system supporting analysis of prototyping in Fab Lab education

Abstract. Digital Fabrication Laboratory (Fab Lab) is an educational workshop that is open and easily accessible for personal fabrication. This workshop is equipped with tools for various aspects of technological materialization. In Fab Labs, makers and educators struggle to have proper documentation of their design process. Means for quick documentation are essential for supporting users’ iterative prototyping, as well as analysis and reflection on design activities. This thesis aims to provide a solution to the lack of proper tools for documentation and reflection on design stages in the Fab Lab educational context. To this aim, different interconnected systems for supporting analysis of prototyping in the Fab Lab are developed. These include a mobile-enabled client-server architecture and a web-based administrative dashboard for supporting managing and analysis of annotated visual data of prototype designs in Fab Lab. Concerning the supporting analysis, the focus is to establish an easy to use documentation tool, which comprises of a mobile application and a web administrator for better Fab Lab educational experience. This thesis demonstrates the theoretical part of the lo-fi design, evaluation, implementation of Restful Web Services and implementation of the mobile-enabled system for properly documenting prototyping stages and an admin control panel. A usability testing was conducted for the developed mobile application and the web application. The purpose was to understand users’ feedback on the usability of the prototypes and the features in the applications that users find useful or the features that are required to be added or improved. The majority of the participants find the application useful

”Beyond 3D printers”: understanding long-term digital fabrication practices for the education of visually impaired or blind youth

Disability professionals could use digital fabrication tools to provide customised assistive technologies or accessible media beneficial to the education of Blind or visually impaired youth. However, there is little documentation of long-term practices with these tools by professionals in this field, limiting our ability to support their work. We report on such practices in a French organisation, providing disability educational services and using digital fabrication since 2013, for six years. We trace how professionals defined how digital fabrication could and should be used through a range of projects, based on pedagogical uses and the constraints in creation, production and maintenance. We outline new research perspectives going beyond 3D printers and its promises of automation to embrace hybrid approaches currently supported by laser cutters, the learning and documentation process, and the production of accessible tactile media at a regional or national scale