Dongseo University — “We Want to Make a Better World”

An article about beauty service providers for blind people was the initial spark that inspired a group of students at Dongseo University. Under their group name “Touch the Heart”, they spent four months working on a project to develop a haptic aid for use by hairdressers when styling blind and partially sighted people. It was a tremendous challenge for the sighted team to imagine a practical solution for this scenario, but in consultation with the Busan Blind Association the newcomers managed to eventually come up with a usable one.

Dongseo University interviewed by Red Dot

Red Dot: What can design achieve for inclusivity?
Dongseo University: We realised during our project that blind people also care about their looks. The first thing that had to happen was to do away with prejudice. And yes, we believe that there are many people who are excluded by prejudice of some kind. It is therefore an important task for designers to solve this problem.

Touch played a big role in this project …
That’s right. As sighted people, we generally know how something will feel even before we touch it. As a blind person, you have to touch the object. Materiality therefore plays a key role in communicating with people who have disabilities of that kind.

What can design do for society in your opinion?
In the course of the creative process, you develop ideas and sometimes change your way of thinking. It makes you aware of problems that you would otherwise not notice. We believe that this can change society for the better and improve the world.