ELICITING CHILDREN'S EXPECTATIONS FOR HAND PROSTHESES THROUGH GENERATIVE DESIGN TOOLS

Abstract

AbstractWhen designing assistive devices for children with disabilities, designers mostly consider technical and functional aspects and overlook factors that affect their usage from children’s perspective. Therefore, in most cases, assistive devices do not fully meet the needs of the children and may create a negative effect on children’s well-being. To explore the opinion’s of children using 3D printed hand prosthetics in Country-Xx, individual generative sessions were conducted with four children with limb deficiency. Generative tools are used to engage children and encourage them to express themselves in relation to prosthesis use. The main aim was to investigate how children provide design relevant information that may help designers to achieve improved assistive devices that support children’s physical, emotional and social wellbeing. Children’s feedback related to prosthetic usage categorized under two topics; expectations of children for prosthesis use and children’s priority expectation for the prosthesis. The findings are argued to be useful and usable by NGOs, product designers and design researchers who work with children with disabilities.