A contribuição do designer no projeto de recursos de tecnologia assistiva : proposta de intervenção colaborativa

Abstract

Esta pesquisa apresenta uma proposta de intervenção colaborativa do designer no processo de desenvolvimento de produtos de Tecnologia Assistiva (TA). A intenção dessa proposta foi sugerir uma forma de atuação colaborativa e integrada do designer, que considere o usuário como protagonista de todo o processo e contribua para com os demais profissionais que hoje atuam no desenvolvimento de TA. A proposta objetivou favorecer ainda, o desenvolvimento de produtos mais adequados aos contextos reais e sociais do usuário e que assim potencializem a pessoa com deficiência nas tarefas das atividades diárias com vistas a inclusão social e escolar. Para atingir o objetivo principal da pesquisa, a estratégia adotada foi a realização de uma pesquisa de campo exploratória através da análise de um caso – criança com deficiência, com sete anos de idade, que estava no início da terapia no centro de reabilitação e que frequentava uma escola de ensino regular. Este estudo considerou que as demandas específicas de pessoas com deficiência, sobretudo as crianças, devem merecer a devida atenção para indicarem os atributos a serem considerados com vistas aos requisitos de projeto de produtos assistivos.

The development of the social inclusion process, which is built from policies, laws, projects and services, configures a new scenario that demands collective actions from society as a whole. Universities, companies, associations and professionals must think, research and act to create opportunities to effectively enable all individuals to use the built environment, and all products and services integrated within it, with safety and comfort. These collective actions require the participation of several professionals at the places attended by the users, where real demands can be identified and where strategies can be operationalized. The key to achieve this is an integrated and collaborative development process for Assistive technology (AT) products, reinforced through an interdisciplinary work in which the user - a disabled child - is the protagonist of the whole process. Therefore, this study presents a proposal for a collaborative designer's intervention in the Assistive Technology development process. The proposal intends to suggest a form of integrated and collaborative action, which considers the user as the protagonist of the whole process, and also to contribute with other professionals that currently work on the development of new AT products. Additionally, the proposal seeks to favor the creation of products that are more appropriate for the user's social and daily reality, and that because that, are able to potentiate the disabled people on their daily activities in order to accomplish social and educational inclusion. To fulfill this research's main objective, the chosen strategy was to do an exploratory field research through case analysis: disabled child, seven years old, who was starting his treatment at the rehabilitation center and that was at the same time going to regular school. This study considers that the specific demands of disabled people, especially children, deserve a fair amount of attention because they can indicate attributes that should be taken into consideration on the development of assistive technology products.