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NYT Syndicate

Matthew Walzer was a college-bound teenager with cerebral palsy when he sent a letter to Nike several years ago. He explained that he had trouble tying laces and slipping into shoes without help.
But he didn't want sneakers that looked clunky and clinical. He wanted Nikes, stylish ones like other students wore, but that worked for him.
In response, the company introduced a line called FlyEase. They're slip-ons with a zipper that seals the back and then Velcro-ties the top in one simple motion.
Not incidentally, they look fantastic.
A pair is now on view at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in 'Access+Ability', a show organised by Cara McCarty and Rochelle Steiner.
Nearly a century ago, tubular metal furniture by Marcel Breuer helped reinvent the wheelchair. Chairs by Charles and Ray Eames, classics of midcentury modernism, evolved from a moulded plywood splint the couple devised for wounded soldiers.
But too often products made for people with different physical, cognitive and sensory abilities have been ugly, feebly designed and stigmatising.
They've been developed not by designers but by engineers. And engineers haven't always taken their cues from people who have disabilities, the ones who know best what they need and want.
The exhibition makes plain why design matters. It points towards a generational change in thinking, not just about designing for difference but about diversity and inclusion. Make a specialty item easier to use ” and at the same time, fun, cool and beautiful ” and that item may be embraced and used by all. The real issue isn't disability. It's choice.
Graham Pullin is one of the designers of a prosthesis in the show, called Hands of X. He cited the example of eyeglasses, which doctors used to call"medical appliances." Then fashion designers got involved.
Annual global sales of eyewear now approach $100 billion. You can imagine if hearing aids were given the same treatment. They might end up looking like the Bedazzled and Bejeweled Earring Aid, by Elana Langer, in 'Access+Ability'.
It turns out that one out of five adults in the United States has some disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ” 1 out of 20 children. That's a demographic and economic motivator. But we also know that when people feel better about themselves, medical outcomes improve.
"The utility of the most functional object in the world will go to waste if potential users don't connect with it and can't see themselves using it," said Donald Strum, a principal for product and graphic design at Michael Graves Architecture and Design. Graves' firm has rethought, among many medical devices, walking sticks, so they work better and use interchangeable handles, colours and tips, which let customers personalise them.
Strum said he approached Target about producing a line of medical equipment a decade ago. The company declined. Back then, its marketing department didn't find the idea sexy. If other retailers took the lead, company officials said, they might follow.
Well, the climate has clearly changed. Target now offers adaptive clothing. There's a Target puffer jacket in the show, designed by Mari Anderson Bogdan, with Velcro seams and zip-on sleeves to serve young people who have trouble dressing.
You don't have to have Parkinson's or arthritis or a prosthetic hand to prefer magnets to buttons and snaps, or to like the idea, and look, of Velcro seams and zippered sleeves. There's a white dress shirt with magnetic closures in the show, which could easily be marketed straight to mainstream consumers, never mind the"adaptive" label. Likewise, pairs of brightly patterned compression socks by Top & Derby.
They provide a good example of how design alters the social and business calculus. Compression socks help increase the circulation of blood and minimise swelling from prolonged sedentariness. They're often worn by people with diabetes or high blood pressure. You may picture them in tan, black or white, next to the bunion pads at the drugstore.
But, as it happens, fashion models wear compression socks, too, because they spend long stretches of time on airplanes. So do athletes. And what models and athletes wear moves a lot of merchandise.
Compression socks in stylish patterns are just stylish socks that happen to have a medical value for some customers. Any fashion-conscious consumer with a little cash to spare might consider them.
When I got home from the show, I Googled a picture of the Nike FlyEase for my teenage son but didn't tell him the back story. He loved they way they looked.
Then I recounted the sneakers' origins. Would he still wear them? I asked.
"Why not?" he asked me back.
And that response points toward the generational shift."Millennials are incredibly nonjudgmental and accepting," said Leslie Speer, a designer of a prosthetic leg in the exhibition.
Steiner, the co-curator, agreed:"When I talk to my design students about inclusive design, there is no snickering, not even a hint of doubt. They simply take it for granted that it's part of a designer's job today."
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30/01/2018
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