Extremes: On How the Study of Appropriation Might Inform Inclusive Workplace Design in Manufacturing
Abstract
Disabled people, from younger to older adults, are at comparative disadvantage regarding work. Design for inclusion at work tends to focus on individual adaptations (often stigmatising) or general accessibility guidelines (often insufficient). Furthermore, there is a tendency to focus on inability rather than on extreme abilities, which seem to be the ones enabling workers to appropriate existing products and create their own designs. Therefore, design research requires more input from diverse workers as users to inform the design inclusive industrial workstations. Departing from theory and ending with analyses of workers' designs, this paper argues that the articulation of the concept of ‘extremes’, as used in inclusive design theory, with the study of appropriation in industrial shopfloors can be a source of information, inquiry and inspiration for new design research towards worker inclusion.
Keywords
appropriation; inclusive design; manufacturing; spontaneous design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.224
Citation
Correia de Barros, A. (2024) Extremes: On How the Study of Appropriation Might Inform Inclusive Workplace Design in Manufacturing, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.224
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Extremes: On How the Study of Appropriation Might Inform Inclusive Workplace Design in Manufacturing
Disabled people, from younger to older adults, are at comparative disadvantage regarding work. Design for inclusion at work tends to focus on individual adaptations (often stigmatising) or general accessibility guidelines (often insufficient). Furthermore, there is a tendency to focus on inability rather than on extreme abilities, which seem to be the ones enabling workers to appropriate existing products and create their own designs. Therefore, design research requires more input from diverse workers as users to inform the design inclusive industrial workstations. Departing from theory and ending with analyses of workers' designs, this paper argues that the articulation of the concept of ‘extremes’, as used in inclusive design theory, with the study of appropriation in industrial shopfloors can be a source of information, inquiry and inspiration for new design research towards worker inclusion.