Design and Prototyping for Disability. WAVE Case Study

The present paper introduces the methodology applied for the development of Wave, an open source assistive device for blind people. The project was developed during the “Intelligent Products” Design Studio, of the Product Design Master Course at the Iuav University of Venice. WaVe is an open source assistive device for blind people that is designed to be attached to the standard white cane to help the users while memorizing new routes in urban context, granting them more autonomy. We cooperated with a blind user, that helped us to understand the main problems in his expe- rience of urban orientation, as example the necessity of tutoring assistance for the study of a new route, requiring multiple walks before proper memorization. Our purpose was to give the user more autonomy, reducing the number of meeting with a tutor: WaVe allows the user to record new routes through refe- rence points, giving him the possibility to retrace them in autonomy. To reach this aim, we decided to use RFID technology, using passive tags as reference points, and the cane as antenna. The product development process started thanks to a series of interviews that we submitted to the user, which allowed us to understand that the topic of autonomous orientation is really felt by the blind, who often have to compromise. Analyzing the results of the interviews we have chosen to work on the white cane, a support that is always present in the life of the blind and that leaves many possibilities for intervention. The design process has always developed using tools open source, in order to guarantee an easy reproducibility of the final product. The user contribution was fundamental during the design phases, useful to understand the real ne- eds and making changes during the work. Wave strongly improves the user’s autonomy through the reduction of the need of memorizing information.