Strategies for Developing Students' Empathy and Awareness for the Needs of People with Disabilities: Contributions to Design Education.

The design of products for people with disabilities requires the understanding of a wide range of factors related to users' health, functional abilities, needs, expectations and preferences. Such multifactorial perspective is often perceived as beyond the reach by the students of both graphic and product design, as it comprises knowledge from different areas such are not usually part of design curriculum as health, rehabilitation, computer science and biomedical engineering. Here, we report on strategies for developing design students' empathy and awareness for the needs and expectations of people with disabilities.