First Week: Gathering Information
The main goal of this week was planning out and doing prerequisite research for the rest of the project. My main plan is to spend the first two weeks deciding the materials that I will use for the controller, the shape of the controller, and the parts I will use for the internals. Arcade sticks are very customizable, so I want to use them as the base idea for my controller. From there, I can 3D print custom parts to make them more helpful for my target audience.
I also lack knowledge about disability-friendly design, so I spent time this week learning about it. Microsoft’s Inclusive Design principles reshaped the way I thought about this project and expanded my target audience for this controller. The idea is that products designed for people with permanent disabilities can help other people with temporary disabilities. My project was focused on people who lost use of their arms, but I realized it could also help people who have broken their arms or sprained their wrists. The main obstacle I’ve had so far was finding professional research on this topic. Most of the sources I was able to find were blogs or other community-made websites. These types of websites are helpful because they give personal feedback from people with disabilities, however, they are unhelpful when it comes to the engineering part of the project. I’d like more information about the design process behind existing adaptive controllers. There was a GDC (Game Developers Conference) interview held by one of the creators of the Xbox adaptive controller, but that mostly focused on the ideas in Microsoft’s Inclusive Design principles and the creator’s motivation to make the adaptive controller.