Design Meets Disability

There is huge potential for innovation in the daily lives of disabled people. Graham Pullin's timely and inspiring book describes a wide range of design challenges; many of these sound niche at first but have broad potential. What are needed are off-the-wall thinking, design craft, and engineering brilliance—plus disabled people as expert co-designers.

John Thackara, Designer and author of In the Bubble

This book will change your emotional response to disability forever, as you discover that designs can celebrate a medical necessity, as in elegant and fashionable eyewear from Cutler and Gross, or openly express functionality, as in the carbon fiber running legs sported by Aimee Mullins. Graham Pullin creates this change with seven chapters that are rich with examples and luscious images, combining deep thinking with a light touch. In the second half of the book he presents us with a fascinating collection of his favorite designers, leaving us yearning for the meetings between design and disability that such rich talent might generate, given the opportunity.

Bill Moggridge, Cofounder of IDEO and author of Designing Interactions

As a teacher of design through the lens of disability, Graham Pullin is without peer.

Hugh M. Herr, MIT Media Lab

Design Meets Disability may be compared to Donald Norman's (1988) Psychology of Everyday Things, which showed how research in cognitive psychology can inform commercial design. Similarly, Design Meets Disability explains how commercial design principles can be used to make more personally identifiable and valuable assistive technologies. As important as Norman's book was to technology design, Design Meets Disability could have a similar impact within the AT field.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication

The book... acts as a manifesto by condemning many of the existing products designed for people with disabilities, and challenging designers to use their skills to develop inspiring alternatives.

The New York Times