In Why Tangibility Matters: A Design Case Study of At-Risk Children Learning to Read and Spell, the authors discussed existing learning tools for children at risk for dyslexia that no systems have been targeting phonological awareness yet. They then presented a case study regarding their tangible reading system that showed significant impacts on children’s reading and spelling skills. From the reading, I found that tangibility matters a lot in students’ learning. As mentioned in the paper, children with dyslexia also have problems distinguishing mirrored letterforms. Being able to touch, flip, and play with a tangible learning tool would allow the students to experiment with letters in various ways. That’s when I see the opportunities of using tangible tools to help with children from different backgrounds, including children with disabilities and children who have difficulties in learning.

The Promise of Empathy: Design, Disability, and Knowing the “Other” examines how the current view of empathy in design process “may actually distance designers” from the solution they try to achieve. The authors discussed the design approaches when designing with people with disabilities, critiqued where empath goes wrong, and suggested the concept of “from being like to being with”. One main takeaway that I got from the reading is to not consider people with disabilities as non-designers. Because people with disabilities know the most about themselves and the problems that they experience, I think it is important to not just “design for” them but “design with” them. Designing for disability is not just creating one product and then finished, for example, wheelchair is not working with stairs. How would wheelchairs work in the city that urban design doesn’t support people with disabilities? I found the authors’ proposed commitments very interesting, especially the first one “rather than seek to represent another’s experience, we seek partnerships in imagining the design encounter.” Adding upon empathy, I think the future of design required “shared accountability” and more inclusion within the community itself.

In Rethinking Design Thinking, the author Benjamin started by discussing and comparing the designs that support prison abolition, then expanded to the bigger topics regarding ethics in design and the concept of reimagining technology. I found it interesting when the author described virtual reality (VR) as an empathy machine. As mentioned in the reading, “do you really need to wear a VR headset in order to empathize with someone?” I actually has an opposite question, whether VR can help with empathizing. Although VR allows us to see someone’s world, it doesn’t provide the context of what that person (or thing) has been through. Connecting this to the previous reading, do designers who try to wear a blindfold feel the same experience with blind people? Technology brings new experiences, but we are the one who control it. This reading touched on many ethical issues, which reminds me the importance of ethical considerations.

Burning questions: As we are introduced to and brought into many new technologies, how should we make people aware of ethical issues that may arise? And who should be in charge of that? Is it the company, the designer, the user, or someone else?