Design Process

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of Open bodies: Challenges and Perspectives of an Open Design Paradigm 

Émeline Bruléa, Frédéric Valentina 

Télécom-ParisTech (2)

emeline.brule@telecom-paritech.fr

Keywords: open, prosthesis, inclusive design

Abstract

Several design practitioners claim to follow an open design philosophy, using open sourcing material, models or tools. But there has been little work on framing the properties of artefacts produced that way, nor on studying how “openness” influence design processes (Aitamurto, Holland & Hussain, 2015). In this paper, we propose to investigate Open Design through examples of prosthetic hands. These highly specific and personalized devices have to answer highly sensitive social, personal, subjective and functional requirements. They perfectly illustrate the challenges the Open Paradigm may help tackling, such as greater inclusivity through the reduction of stigma, access to social participation and empowerment of users in general. First, we build upon the related work to identify properties of openness. We then present the methodology used to review nine different prosthetic hands. Building upon these examples, we frame a critical perspective on openness and how this paradigm encompasses or informs other design practices. We conclude by presenting our current and future work, to provide perspectives on the applications of our essay. 

This paper is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.

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Cite this paper: Brulé, E., Valentin, F. (2016). Of Open bodies: Challenges and Perspectives of an Open Design Paradigm. Proceedings of DRS 2016, Design Research Society 50th Anniversary Conference. Brighton, UK, 27–30 June 2016.

This paper will be presented at DRS2016, find it in the conference programme


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