What a truly inclusive world will look like? Irrespective of disabilities, caste, creed, religion, gender etc. 

Economically, we would witness:

• A surge in innovation, as companies with diverse management teams, are 33% more likely to outperform their competitors (McKinsey & Company)

• Increased productivity due to a more engaged and motivated workforce (inclusive companies enjoy a 2.3x higher cash flow per employee - Deloitte)

• A substantial boost to the global GDP (full inclusion of people with disabilities could add up to $25 trillion to the global economy - World Bank)

Socially, we would experience:

• A world where everyone's talents and abilities are recognized and celebrated, as 80% of people with disabilities can work with reasonable accommodations (Cornell University)

• Stronger communities built on understanding, empathy, and shared values (inclusive teams make better business decisions 87% of the time - Cloverpop)

• A generation of role models inspiring future leaders from all backgrounds

In this inclusive world, barriers would crumble, and opportunities would abound. We would learn from one another, grow stronger together, and create a global community that thrives on diversity, equity, and inclusion. It's really up to us to make this a reality. 

Product design is an exciting venture for an engineer. To bear witness to a design that may have been a part of imagination at a certain point in time which would later become a functional product appreciated by the users is an enticing aspect. The typical process involved in product design begins with deeply understanding the needs of the users to whom the product caters and achieving the technical specifications needed by developing a novel product that reproduces the user's needs as well as possible within a viable timeframe.

Generally, many factors and parameters may have to be considered in order to achieve an effective design outcome. Consequently, the product that a designer develops may have to be complex and possibly multi-component in order to meet those needs. Take for example the ubiquitous smartphone. The user needs may encompass friendly ergonomics, long battery life, excellent cameras, a fast processor, a display that’s a treat to watch, and so much more. Hence, the smartphones that we use today are highly multi-component, and present a plethora of technical specifications to achieve and further improve upon.

Understanding the complexity, it is easy to conclude that it isn’t always possible to achieve an optimal design right away. The process tends to be rather iterative and a learning experience throughout. Whilst this is the case, an experimental design approach, wherein a product is designed, fabricated and tested during each design iteration, can potentially be a highly expensive affair. For instance, we may need plenty of time and a significant scale of manpower to fabricate a multi-component system. Moreover, there’s a considerable cost involved for the fabrication as well, with the time consumed to prepare a unique prototype for each design iteration indirectly adding to the cost. These costs during the research and development of the product would ultimately reflect on its final cost.

In light of this, a computational approach is an alternative route that can be explored to possibly expedite the processes involved in product development prior to user testing. Considering the case of rehabilitation devices for people with disability, a significant volume of research has been conducted in the past few decades that have greatly improved our understanding of human biomechanics. This advancement has led to the development of effective mathematical models for walking, running, jumping, and sit-to-stand motion amongst others. In addition, avenues to perform complex dynamic, musculoskeletal and finite element analysis have been presented, which could provide insights regarding the short-term and long-term performance of a product. Such analysis techniques provide opportunities to characterize the performance of a device and further improve it.

To highlight a few useful examples: the forces experienced by various muscles and joints in the arm of a wheelchair user during the propulsion of the device can be computed using a musculoskeletal model to possibly mitigate shoulder ache overuse. For a prosthetic knee, a kinematic/kinetic model of the mechanism can be employed to aid in computing and altering the forces and moments that a prosthesis user may exert, and thereby improving the user experience. Whilst running with an artificial foot, the natural frequency of the spring blade can be numerically studied by performing a modal analysis. The analysis can help understand the duration it would take to return the mechanical energy stored to generate the timely push required for athletes to run at high speeds.

Besides functionality, a computational approach can help gauge the structural integrity of a product. Generally, rehabilitation devices are designed to withstand the loads specified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Using techniques such as finite element analysis, the specified loads can be simulated and the mechanical behaviour of the product can be understood in detail. The technique has witnessed such advancements that it is possible to simulate and achieve reliable results for multi-component systems that may be of composites, foams, metals and plastic, which may additionally have mechanical interactions of varying complexities, viz., physically welded, fastened, sliding contacts of varying friction coefficients etc. Moreover, the fatigue life of the designed product can be estimated using the finite element approach in order to meet the requirements put forth by ISO, wherein a product may be required to withstand millions of cyclic loads. This aspect is key since rehabilitation devices tend to fail by fatigue over repeated use.

Whilst a computational approach provides multiple avenues to evaluate a designed product, it does require researchers and engineers who are well-versed in the technical aspects of biomechanics and the structural mechanics involved. However, it introduces the possibility of undertaking a high-risk design approach which can be very advantageous. For instance, it may be an arduous affair to iteratively design, manufacture and test a carbon fibre-reinforced plastic-based wheelchair or prosthesis by a startup. A finite element approach towards modelling them effectively with a skilled team can expedite the study efficiently.

Given the various advantages a systematically executed computational approach towards product design can present, it may be a valid means to develop optimized products with scientific rigour for further experimental testing with users and sophisticated equipment. Therefore, a computational approach towards product design can be effective by potentially making the process efficient in terms of time, cost and manpower whilst leading to greater confidence in the designer and the user community regarding the assistive device.

This year's Olympic games in Tokyo have been the most successful outing for India, winning 7 medals including a gold in athletics. With the attention now moving to the Paralympic Games that kickstart on 24th August, let's take a closer look at the history of the Paralympic Games, how it started, how it is different and what it means to persons with disabilities. 

Dr. Guttman and Stoke Mandeville Games 

What could a neurologist possibly have to do with disability sports and the Paralympics? Well, way more than what we could imagine. Dr. Guttman is considered to be the father of the Paralympic movement. Seeing the condition of the wounded soldiers from World War II, he believed rehabilitating them through sports could be one of the best ways to bring them back into the community instead of being bedridden and staring at the ceiling all day long. It certainly wasn't an easy task; it was breaking away from the conventional rehabilitation methods (watch the movie Best of Men). He did it unassumingly despite some stiff resistance from his colleagues. 

On the day of the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games in 1948, Dr. Guttman organized the first competition for wheelchair athletes, which he called the  Stoke Mandeville Games. There were 16 injured servicemen and women who took part in archery.

Later in 1952, it became the International Stoke Mandeville Games when Dutch ex-servicemen joined the movement. 

https://youtu.be/-RiK5Ylyuwg

First Paralympic Games 

Only in 1960 Stoke Mandeville Games became the Paralympic Games, with 400 athletes from 23 countries coming together in Rome. Since then, the games have occurred every 4 years just like the Olympics. The para in Paralympic is borrowed from Paraplegia - a condition referring to paralysis of both lower limbs. 

Since the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in South Korea and the 1992 Winter Games, the Paralympic games, both summer and Winter, started taking place in the same cities as the Olympic games. 

Over the last two decades, the movement has strengthened with many countries establishing their national Paralympic committees/federations and participating in these games. 

India and Paralympic Games 

India's first outing was in 1968, then in 1972. Since 1984, India has participated in every Games and the most successful outing was the Rio 2016 Games with a tally of 4 medals. 

Classification 

Classification is an integral part of disability sports. It is this process that brings equity to the participating athletes. Persons play para sports with different disabilities. It wouldn't be fair to pitch a person with a knee below amputation against a quadriplegic who is paralysed neck downwards or a person with blindness against someone with cerebral palsy. Irrespective of the person's disability, the classification process tries to group persons with similar abilities to compete against each other. Each sport has its classification process to ensure fairness (for example. Swimming has 14 classification groups, being a very physical sport while shooting has only 2 classification groups) 

There are about 28 (22 summer and 6 winter) Paralympic sports and the technical rules largely remain similar to Olympic sports with minor accommodations/adaptations to make the sport inclusive. 

Sports as a Rehabilitation Tool

There are millions of Indians with a disability who still don't know they can play a sport for recreation, fitness or competition. Lack of awareness, lack of accessible sporting facilities and public infrastructure, and lack of knowledge resources among teachers, parents, and rehabilitation professionals continue to be the barriers, leaving several persons with disability behind. Sports could be used as an all-around tool for rehabilitation as it encompasses multiple aspects of rehabilitation - physical fitness, mental agility and camaraderie that can help bring in social participation. Both state and central governments reward successful athletes handsomely these days. Sports can go a long way in bringing this invisible population back into the communities. 

Along with the R2D2 family, I wish our Indian Paralympic contingent a fantastic outing!

For more details on Paralympic games, check https://www.paralympic.org/

What will this article cover? - Introduction to user-centric design, as we dissect this buzzword and see if it makes logical sense to follow this approach in product design.

Who is this article for? - Early-stage start-ups, First-time product developers, Physical or tangible product developers (Although applicable to software, the objective is to focus on non-software or physical products), engineers developing products, and the like.

So, let's start by addressing the 3 aspects of User-Centric Design like any other topic - Why, What, and How.

Why use this? - Because we want the users to love the product, like really love it. Once users experience the device, we want to be in a situation where users chase us to buy the device rather than us chasing them to sell it. I believe there is great value when users love the product. This can become the driving (or guiding) force for sales, and marketing (Tesla ?), and users inform other users via word of mouth, which is the best form of product promotion. So, is it really necessary that users love the product? One could sell the product even when users do not love it. However, this approach provides an extra edge that most companies seek. Look at any great brand in the world, their customers love their products E.g. Apple, Disney, Decathlon, Coke, and many more. This approach provides a thought process to design a product that users love.

What is this? - Keeping users' interests as the priority in product development decision-making. It is about designing a product which users would love. Philosophically, it is about keeping the end objective in mind and then using it as a map to guide us along the journey (Second Habit of the Seven Habits by Stephen Covey). In this case, our end objective is that users love the product. Hence, we want to use this to be the guiding force for the decision-making.

How to put this into action? The tool is 'Empathy'. In a way, Empathy is the ability to put yourself into the customer's shoes, think and feel like them, and understand their value system. I connect with the articulation by Satya Nadella - " one of the things that I’ve come to realize is, if I look at what is Microsoft’s core business, it is about being able to meet the unmet and unarticulated needs of customers, and there is just no way we are going to be able to succeed in doing that if we don’t have that deep sense of empathy".

How do we develop empathy? – It’s a creative process with no defined formula. There are various things one can do to improve empathy like interviewing the customer, just observing the customer passively, becoming their shadow, mapping the day of the customer, engaging with extreme users, testing the concept designs with the customer, discussing beyond the device, go out for a coffee with them and so on. The basic idea is to understand the belief system so that you can decide in the user’s best interest. So far, it seems logical to follow this approach to develop the product, Right? Then why do very few adopt this? What are the challenges?

Here are some reasons -

Designer's own biases - how do we empty our cup (Zen-like approach)? This is the first thing. You need to delete your biases and download the biases of the users. You need to practice the art of being empty here. Let me share some of my experiences - 1. I was surprised to know that people with visual impairment are particular about the colour and look of the device. I expected them not to care much about the colour as they would not have experienced it. But it is more important to them (like anyone else) how others perceive them with the device. 2. I was surprised to know many full-time wheelchair users would never use a motorised wheelchair even though it is more convenient to control mobility by pushing a button, but prefer pushing the wheelchair for their mobility. Rather than developing a motorized wheelchair, it might make more sense to develop an easy-to-propel manual wheelchair for this case. Generally speaking, beyond the product, biases (or preferences) are there on a day-to-day basis in all our decision-making. The objective here is not to let this interfere with the decision-making of the product.

Art of trade-offs - Product development requires you to make thousands of daily decisions that must satisfy multiple objectives. Often, these objectives are governed by parameters that are contrary to each other, for example, if you want to reduce the weight of the product, you might have to remove the extra feature; if you want to reduce tooling cost, you might not be able to have the aesthetic cover; if you want to use fancy material, that might not fit into the total product costing, etc. You cannot build an ultrafast, fuel-efficient, 6-seater, low-cost, highly stable, high ground clearance, ultra-cool-looking sports car (Exaggerating the point). Parameters like user requirement, productibility, cost, reliability, technical specification, quality, safety, and visual appeal often compete against each other. It's the responsibility of a designer to first understand the priorities of the user and then put them into action - this is the challenging and exciting part. There is no single pre-defined answer regarding where to compromise, finding the right balance is the beauty of the challenge. Steve Jobs nicely put this - “This is a very complicated world. It’s a very noisy world, and we will not get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company does. So, we must be clear on what we want them to know about us”.

Fear of change - Fear of bumping into something new or knowing that the present design might not work after investing a lot in it. It is a scary experience to keep the device in front of the user the first few times. I have personally faced this challenge and seen so many people make mistakes along similar lines. You need to fail fast, learn and improve. Fear of failure in the short term would eventually lead to bigger failures in the long run.

The complexity of Human Nature - Most of the time, users do not know their priorities (like life). They know some part of it but can rarely stitch the complete story. Understanding this with the limited data you can gather is a real challenge. Cracking this requires a real interest in the user, which helps develop a high level of empathy. Like in any creative field, there is no defined formula to solve this. Or maybe there is a formula very few have understood as they can consistently deliver great products like Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive, etc. But maybe it is so complicated that it is rarely understood or explained. This is one of the big challenges or opportunities.

Why make all this effort, then? - It significantly improves the chances of product success. One might still fail, like in any creative field; there is no guaranteed success, and it only betters one's chances. I can confidently say that not following this approach would make the odds similar to winning a lottery with a single ticket. You might win, but the chances are really low.

Here are some of my experiences and learnings -

I completed the design of a wheelchair for my final year project without meeting any users. It was designed for children with Cerebral palsy with a higher level of disability. The technology worked fine, but because I was only assuming for the user, without meeting them, many children could not use the wheelchair as they did not have appropriate support. Children with higher levels of disability require additional support to position comfortably in the wheelchair not designed in it. Portability was another key requirement learned after keeping the prototype in front of the user. The device had to go through another iteration to incorporate these features. Understanding these right from the start would have made it possible to have a much better initial prototype.

I made a similar mistake in my next project regarding the design of another wheelchair for adults. The technology was okay but far away from the desired product. It was a big complex bulky structure, which in a way did not instill confidence in the user. The learning from the interaction was that many users do not want their wheelchairs to catch their attention. They want the person to be seen before the wheelchair. Hence, it should be theoretically invisible or practically minimal in design. This learning paved the way for other improvements and a different product line-up.

Let us consider some other real-life examples to see the impact of this approach better -

Doug Dietz, a veteran from GE with 24 years of experience, had designed a new MRI machine (Reference Creative Confidence book). This technology was submitted for the International Design Excellence Award - considered the Oscar of design. On getting to see the device on the field, Doug jumped at the opportunity. He was very sure that people would be thrilled with the device. Even his question to the clinician was - "How did you like the new features in the device"? (This is a bad form of interviewing as it is biasing the answer from the interviewee to be a positive one about the device; the question should have been: what do you think about the features of the device). What he found on the field surprised him. Most children were very afraid to take the MRI test using the device, and around 80% had to be sedated during the test. This resulted in a traumatic experience for the family, making him change his perspective about the device - rather than seeing an elegant sleek piece of technology worthy of accolades and admiration, he saw through the eyes of the child that the machine was a big scary device. He returned, worked on the device and converted the device into an adventure game. The big scary machine was converted into a spaceship, which was like a gaming experience for the child. The scary noise from the machine was perceived as an added thrill rather than a horrifying experience. This reduced the sedation rate drastically, and patient satisfaction increased to 90%. This improvement not only improves the financial reward of the product but also, in a way, makes the world a better place.

Embrace, an infant warmer, is a device to keep babies warm. Initially, the device was used to show the temperature on it. During the field visit, the team found that many people in rural parts of India were not fully warming the device. In an interview, one mother said, "If Western medicine says 1 teaspoon tablet, then we give half. If it tells 36.5 degrees, we keep this at 30 degrees. Now, who can sit in a lab and guess a requirement like this? The team redesigned the system so that it only glows an LED when the temperature reaches 36.5 degrees rather than showing the temperature value. This way, the chance of making a mistake is further reduced, improving the functioning and safety of the device. I feel this example beautifully points out the impact of user-centric design.

When is this approach relevant? – Anytime you have users using the product, this approach provides a way to develop a product that users would love. E.g. – Any device like a Mobile phone, automobile, washing machine, and so many more.  You can throw this approach out in some rare devices like the Mars rover, the device does not interact with humans. The philosophy is to keep the end objective as the guide, in the rover case, it would be to develop a device in accordance with the laws of the universe, while in most of the other cases, it would be about developing a product that users love.

References -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR-ZT8mhfJ4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF-tKLISfPE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oksetv3i90

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gkTxhigtXU

https://www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration/from-design-thinking-to-creative-confidence

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_5W.htm

https://www.amazon.in/Creative-Confidence-Unleashing-Potential-Within/dp/038534936X