Susanne Jacobson | Doctoral Student | MA, BBA | susanne.jacobson(at)aalto.fi
The doctoral research “Personalised Assistants: Replacing the Stigma Associated with Assistive Products” (working title) aims at describing how young adults with physical disabilities experience assistive products, whether assistive devices or accessible space, and manage the stigma associated with them. I study how young adults have personalised their assistive products in order to make them more individual expressions of their identities that connote things beyond disability.
In personalised assistive products, I focus on qualities that reduce the stigma associated with traditional assistive products. I consider particularly meaningful the ambiguous features that hide or surpass the assistive, presumed stigmatising, appearance and associate the product with another product category than the original. Furthermore, my interest is in mainstream products that are applied to assistive purposes of use and how the interplay between intermingling product categories could affect the stigma of assistive products.
Through studying assistive products’ role in constructing their users’ identities, my research interconnects design semantics, user experience, and inclusive design. I approach the research problem through Erving Goffman’s (1990 [1963]) conceptions of impression and stigma management. Furthermore, I apply Mary Douglas’ (2008 [1966]) insights into classification in the evaluation of assistive products. My standpoint derives from symbolic interactionism and social constructionism.
I apply a case study approach in my research. My core data consists of theme interviews with young adults with physical disabilities. The interviews centre around one of the key findings of an earlier probes study and deepen my understanding about it. I complement the interviews with additional data. The analysis of the data is theory-guided. My aim is to describe personalised products, explore their qualities, and to understand the reasons behind the phenomenon of personalisation. Therefore, my research is both descriptive and interpretive.
I graduated from the University of Art and Design Helsinki (TaiK) in 2004 majoring industrial and strategic design and minoring design management in Helsinki School of Economics. Since 2004 I have worked as a researcher in Future Home Institute in University School of Art and Design. Currently, I work as a Doctoral Candidate (funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation) in Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department of Design.