Towards including end-users in the design of prosthetic hands: Ethical analysis of survey of Australians with upper-limb difference

Science and Engineering Ethics (2):1-27 (2019)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Advances in prosthetic design should benefit people with limb difference. But empirical evidence demonstrates a lack of uptake of prosthetics among those with limb difference, including of advanced designs. Non-use is often framed as a problem of prosthetic design or a user’s response to prosthetics. Few studies investigate user experience and preferences, and those that do tend to address satisfaction or dissatisfaction with functional aspects of particular designs. This results in limited data to improve designs and, we argue, this is pragmatically and ethically problematic. This paper presents results of a survey we conducted in 2017 with people with upper limb difference in Australia. The survey sought to further knowledge about preferences surrounding prosthetics and understanding of how preferences relate to user experience, perspective, and context. Survey responses demonstrated variety in the uptake, use and type of prosthetic—and that use of, preferences about, and impacts of prosthetics rely not just on design factors but on various contextual factors bearing on identity and social understandings of disability and prosthetic use. From these results, we argue that non-use of prosthetics could be usefully reframed as an issue of understanding how prosthetics can best support users’ autonomy. This supports the claim that there is a need to incorporate user engagement into design processes for prosthetic limbs, though further work is needed on methods for doing so.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Recovering a "Disfigured" Face.Gili Yaron, Guy Widdershoven & Jenny Slatman - 2017 - Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 21 (1):1-23.
Digital Rights and Freedoms: A Framework for Surveying Users and Analyzing Policies.Todd Davies - 2014 - In Luca Maria Aiello & Daniel McFarland (eds.), Social Informatics: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference (SocInfo 2014). Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol. 8851. pp. 428-443.
Tensions in human-centred design.Marc Steen - 2011 - CoDesign 7 (1):45-60.

Analytics

Added to PP
2019-12-13

Downloads
23 (#584,666)

6 months
4 (#320,252)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Mary Jean Walker
La Trobe University
Eliza Goddard
La Trobe University

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations