On any given day on the internet you can find a whole load of tweets, blogs or news about the grooviest gadgets. They all have one thing in common - they look sexy. Care products on the other hand, don't.
This was a sentiment expressed to me by several care campaigners at a conference recently. So when yet another link dropped into my inbox, this time for the coolest transparent gadgets the problems became all too obvious.
I mean here is a bunch of things which by and large are rendered aesthetically pleasing just by making them see-through. Design ideas don't have to be big to work, yet you'll struggle to get most care gadgets in anything other than that most bland of colours - beige.
Where is the next Steve Jobs of the care sector? Perhaps right visability aids aren't quite as fun for designers as the all singing all dancing iGadgets.
There is the odd exception. Just last month one pioneering individual won the Design Management Europe prize for his wheelchair design which looks like it was crafted by the hands of Pinin Farina himself. The competition in the care market is more Lada than Lamborghini by comparison.
If you want things to improve I figure you have to give people an incentive. So starting right here I'd like you to all go to the website of the prestigious D&DA design awards (which basically involves a big book of the years most sexy stuff) and ask them to institute a category for care aids. Maybe that way we can inject a bit of silicone valley into caring for disabled people, grandads and grannies.
I mean here is a bunch of things which by and large are rendered aesthetically pleasing just by making them see-through. Design ideas don't have to be big to work, yet you'll struggle to get most care gadgets in anything other than that most bland of colours - beige.
Where is the next Steve Jobs of the care sector? Perhaps right visability aids aren't quite as fun for designers as the all singing all dancing iGadgets.
There is the odd exception. Just last month one pioneering individual won the Design Management Europe prize for his wheelchair design which looks like it was crafted by the hands of Pinin Farina himself. The competition in the care market is more Lada than Lamborghini by comparison.
If you want things to improve I figure you have to give people an incentive. So starting right here I'd like you to all go to the website of the prestigious D&DA design awards (which basically involves a big book of the years most sexy stuff) and ask them to institute a category for care aids. Maybe that way we can inject a bit of silicone valley into caring for disabled people, grandads and grannies.
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