Why We Need Universal Design | Michael Nesmith | TEDxBoulder

Michael is a deaf and native American Sign Language speaker working as a creative designer for Amazon. Throughout his career, Michael's visual/conceptual way of thinking and problem solving have served him both as an asset and a challenge. He finds solutions around his disability through Universal Design.

Michael Allen Nesmith, a Chicago native, was born into a deaf-culture family using ASL as the primary language. He attended Gallaudet University (an all-deaf college) in Washington DC and then moved back to Chicago for his MFA in Visual Communication Design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He moved to Portland, Oregon to begin his advertising career in W+K12; an experimental advertising school housed inside Wieden+Kennedy's Portland office. He is now a visual designer at Amazon in Seattle, WA. Throughout his career, Michael's visual/conceptual way of thinking and problem solving have served him both as an asset and a challenge.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

[applause]

Hello!

It's great to be here.

You might be noticing that I have a female

voice that's speaking for me right now.

That's because my interpreter is a woman.

If I could have chosen, if I could have

picked anyone for tonight, I think it

probably would have been a British man.

[laughter]

Have you ever been in that situation—

maybe you're in a supermarket

or you're walking down a hallway—

and you're walking towards a stranger

coming the opposite direction,

and you start that awkward dance where

you're trying to pass them

and you go to the right,

and they go to the right,

and you go to the left.

You know how awkward that is?

Have you ever been there?

[laughter]

So suppose you were deaf like I am

and you're going down the hallway

and the person coming towards you

is completely blind

and you start the awkward dance.

What would you do?

Have you ever thought about that?

How would you communicate?

This happened to my friend.

He's completely deaf,

and he was coming down the hallway

and there was a blind person

coming towards him.

And they started the awkward dance

and the blind man began to talk.

And my deaf friend--

what was he going to do?

He couldn't hear.

So his first intuition is to gesture,

point to his ears, and say, you know,

“I'm deaf,” but obviously

the blind man's not going to see that.

So his second intuition was to take out

his phone and type in his notes.

The blind man's not going to

see that, either.

So the third thing he did

was a little unusual.

He grabbed the blind man's hand,
and he held it up to his ear

and he shook his head no.

And the blind man felt this
and immediately understood,

“oh, this guy's deaf.”

That awkward dance was over.

They were able to just kind of
share a laugh and pass each other.

So let's change the story a little bit.

What if my friend was himself-- he was
deaf-- but this person wasn't

blind at all.

He could still see.

Maybe he spoke a different language.

If my friend decided to do the
same thing, anyway--

grab his hand, put it up to his
ear, and shake his head no—

would that person still understand him?

Probably.

Might be a little awkward, but
it'd be universally understood.

This is what I do every day as a
creative for Amazon and a designer.

I make visuals on the front page
of the world's largest online storefront.

I solve these problems that have to be
accessible to millions and millions

of different kinds of people
with different backgrounds.

As a deaf person, I have to
innovate solutions all the time.

I do this in my everyday life.

My communication medium changes
with every interaction I have.

Everything from a pitch--
pitching an idea to a client--

to going into a bar
and simply ordering a beer.

My communication style has to change.

I'm constantly thinking about

how to make a better solution
and sometimes my solutions are awkward.

Like, for example, you see me
signing with two hands right now,

but then I have to stop to click.

That's one example.

But I would like to argue
that everyone in this room

has a disability, regardless of
if it's permanent or temporary.

It could be something as
simple as being pregnant,

having a broken arm,
being older, or being a child.

Everyone has to figure out a way to cope
and navigate around their disability,

and these solutions are worth sharing.

One example would be my wife.

She's hearing, and we visited
Iceland a few years ago.

She's an educator, and she wanted to take
a tour of a school for the deaf.

Now, neither of us can
read or write Icelandic,

and I can't speak Icelandic Sign Language.

But being a native signer, I could
understand much better than she could,

and so I ended up interpreting for her

for the first time
in our entire relationship.

Often, I'm considered the disabled one,

but in this situation
she was the one with a disability.

So what is Universal Design, anyway?

There was a professor named Ron Mace
who passed away a few years ago.

He taught at the Center for
Universal Design in North Carolina,

and he said that Universal Design

is the design of products and environments

to be usable by all people to
the greatest extent possible

without the need for any adaptation
or specialized design.

So humans interact
with objects every day,

and all these objects fall somewhere
on the spectrum of Universal Design,

from very universal to not at all.

So let's use a doorknob
as a common example.

Doorknobs are not really
usable by children.

They struggle. People with arthritis
struggle to use doorknobs, and this guy.

[laughter]

So how could we improve on this design?

Well, the door lever. It's a lot better.

This guy can use it now.

But think about people with wheelchairs.

Have you ever seen them try to
go through a door? It' horrible.

It's really tough for them.

Or parents with baby strollers.

It's really difficult,
not fully accessible.

So to even improve upon
the door design further,

the automatic sliding door was invented.

This is such a Universal Design.

It doesn't leave anyone out;
even animals can use it.

One of my projects recently
was to work on something

to make it more universally accessible.

Remember when Google glass came out--

It was so exciting a few years ago?

Now, may it rest in peace. [laughter]

But I started thinking about
how could I use that--

how could I make that really
awesome new technology beneficial--

for people like me?

So I thought of my mother immediately.

My mother is deaf,
and she loves going to movies.

Often, movie theaters would
release a movie with subtitles

that were imposed on the screen,
and that was a really exciting event.

I don't know if you know this but
deaf options in a movie theater

are really bleak, and you usually
have to wear something like this.

Can you imagine going on
your first date looking like this?

[laughter] Yeah.

So I thought, how can I make this better?

I decided to get a file for a movie script
and put it in an app

so that you could have a timed app
where you could press play

and go into any movie theatre
and see the script on your Google Glass.

No one had done that before
and I had to move pretty fast on that.

And the biggest reward was seeing --

was not only realizing that it helps
people like my mom or people like me,

but also anyone can use it.

Imagine if you go to a different country
and you go into a movie theatre--

you want to watch a movie-- you can watch
it in your own language.

Or you could even have an app

become your own personal karaoke
machine and have it play lyrics.

That is the genius of Universal Design.

When you achieve Universal Design,

it snowballs to the point where people--

even if you don't share
the same disability--

everyone benefits from it.

Disability drives innovation.

The existence of disability forces you
to come up with new solutions.

It does not impair you.

All of us have a disability,

regardless of if it's physical or
cognitive, emotional or even temporary.

What is your solution?

Share it with us.
It's what unifies us as humans.

Let's stop making that awkward dance
so awkward. Thank you.

[applause]