Christina Mallon: Chapter 1: How to Design for the Disabled

It's Machine Yearning from Assist. It's a podcast where we think and dream about the future of AI, the talking internet, and how we're reshaping our culture. This chapter is an excerpt from our interview with Christina Mallon, and she's talking about a subject area that matters to every single person. Seriously, if you lead product or are a CMO or anywhere in the org chain, you need to take notes and share this one around. Christina Malin, our guest, is a designer, advocate, and authority on designing for the disabled. In this chapter, she presents a clear and compelling case for why designing for the disabled is an inescapable business imperative. This is just a taste, so make sure you grab the full episode and subscribe so you never miss a single Machine Yearning. Kristina Mallon.

How are you?

Doing well.

Tell us what you do for a living.

So I do many things for a living, but really it all focuses on inclusive design. During the day, I work at Possible Advertising in their inclusive design group, helping brands just be more inclusive in their marketing. And then at night, I help run an incubator at Parsons called Open Style Lab. And Open Style Lab takes multifunctional teams— product designers, fashion designers, occupational therapists— to create a design for someone with a disability focusing on fashion.

And that's how we met.

And that is how we met. Lovely Open Style Lab.

It was such a special day. And can you tell people why you're there?

I'm there because about 8 years ago I started to notice that a few of my fingers couldn't type as well. And over an 8-year span, both my arms and fingers became completely paralyzed due to a motor neuron disease that no doctors have been able to diagnose.

Can you tell me the stat again? Because it really surprised me. You said, how many people in the world do you think are disabled? And how many is it?

It's one-fifth of the world identifies as having a disability. And I think it's probably even larger. But the fact that not everyone reports that they have a disability makes that one-fifth. But it's still such a large number, and it shocks everyone every time I say it.

Including me.

Yes.

And when they self-identify with a disability, what can that mean? What are we talking about here?

We're talking from everything to physical and cognitive, so really a large span of different types of disabilities. But at the end of the day, they struggle with a task due to either physical or cognitive function that they have.

And now, how do you describe your mission around design and how you want to impact the world?

Yeah, I think that I look at what makes me disabled, and it's the world. It's the products around me didn't think about me when they were created. So what I try to do is to create products that think about people with disabilities first, because if all products are made for me in mind, I won't be disabled anymore.

When you say start with accessibility, how do I do that? How does the design process start? And where do you get inspiration from to know what's right?

Yeah, so what I do is I try to do a lot of prototyping and user testing with people with multiple disabilities. My disability only affects my arm. So I'm not going to be saying, okay, this is perfect for people with disabilities, this product, because it works for me. I try to ask my friends that have vision impairments or my friends in the seated position or my friends with autism and get their feedback on a product. And I do a lot of prototyper— prototyping and user testing to make sure that I'm covering some of the largest disabilities and getting their kind of check before I'm saying a product is okay. And that's what we try to do at Open Style Lab, is that we teach our fellows to use this type of user testing and prototyping so that when they go off to their full-time jobs and they're creating products, so that is thought of when they are creating their own product that will touch millions of people.

Can you tell us about a product you saw designed at Open Style Labs that just really blew you away, or that is a good example of accessibility-first thinking?

So I could say I actually participated in Open Style Lab, and that's how I found it. So I was one of their clients with a disability. And one really interesting thing that they created was there was a girl with autism, and she would pick at the linings of her shirt, so all of the seams, and the shirt would come undone. Every day her mom had to get her a new t-shirt. That's so expensive. And then also she didn't know as her daughter was becoming a woman, she was ripping her shirt off in public. So a lot of the times they couldn't go to things. And the students were able to create and work with some design firms to create a fabric that was unrippable. And then also use some of the girls' drawings in her shirt so that she wouldn't want to rip up her drawings. So they just kind of used and understand how autism worked and how to help avoid her picking at the seams by using better fabrics and knowing that she won't want to rip up her designs. And it ended up with a beautiful product that allows her to go out with confidence.

Do you feel like we have an opportunity right now at this moment in time with these new voice platforms and messaging platforms that are green grass, nothing's really been figured out yet, it's new territory for brands and people, that you must start accessibility first?

100%. I think in anything that you do, the more it's focused on the user the product is always better. You know, more minds than one is always better. And I think that starting with accessibility and making sure that is kind of a rule number one will make a better product for all. So if we look at the typewriter that was created by someone so that he could send love letters and they had a disability, he was blind, and a typewriter allowed for that. And you look at Siri, that was created for people with disabilities, and now that's a product for everyone. So if you look at some of the best products that were created with people with disabilities in mind, and now it benefits everyone, we need to look at things like that. And that's how we justify spending, you know, the extra couple thousands to make your website accessible or to have someone with a disability on your team and making those accommodations because they could come up with some of the best products. And if you think it like that, it makes the extra expense worth it.

What's an example that you specifically are excited about that you've seen someone really do well accessibility first?

Hmm. Let me think about that one.

You're like, "None, these assholes." I know, I know.

I'm like, it's so—

What's the last thing you interacted with that you thought, "Wow, they really thought through the accessibility on this"?

That's a very, very good question. Um, maybe a lot of brand new buildings. I was just at Brookfield Place and it was fully accessible. Even every single door and everything that from just like reaching items, they were put lower on the shelves. Maybe that, but I don't know, not everyone's thinking about it.

Thanks for listening, and we hope you take a second to share this episode with other members of your team. It's one of those dealbreaker places we have to get right in AI and machine learning. Get in touch on Twitter @Assist. DMs are open. We're super interested to hear who you think should appear on the podcast. Machine Learning is made by Paul Ciuffo and Michael Elsesser for Limon House. Have a great day.