From this week’s reading, The Future of Interaction Design, the author discussed the topics of affordances and argued how ‘hands’ can be the future of interaction, in both physical and digital worlds. I partly agree with the author about the capabilities that hands give, as “hands feel things, and hands manipulate things.” However, I also wonder how designers address the future of “accessible” interaction, considered that not every person gets benefits from “hands”. During my undergraduate internship, I worked on a project that involves people who work in construction fields. We wanted to find a solution that helps them communicate with their team better, so we did field study and interviews. Because field workers always work with their hands, it is difficult for them to type on their phone, or do multitasks with hands. From that, I found the limitation of hands, even with people with no disabilities, so I wonder how we can make a more-accessible future of interaction for all people.

In the reading “What do Prototypes Prototype,” the authors introduced the problem, model, and role of a prototype. With the question from the previous reading still in mind, I found it interesting that the authors suggested designers to ask questions about the design of any artifact: “What role will it play in a users life? How should it look and feel?” This also makes me think about how people can “feel” things, that people may have one or more ways to sense: seeing, smelling, hearing, touching, and tasting.

Burning Question: How could we use different senses to explore the possibility of design and prototypes in order to improve accessibility?