A few thoughts from an outsider (I capture PARKINSN for a friend).
I have seen discount price interior door knobs at places like Builder's
Square with at least some fluting for grip. Not as good as you are
looking for, but better than smooth.
>As a product designer, I have always found it fascinating that the cockpit of
>an F-16 is designed better for a person with mobility problems (of any sort)
>than most (probably all) cars! They have "headsup" display for all
>instruments so that they don't have to move their eyes to look at the dials;
>they have a stick with various controls requiring almost exclusively gross
>motor skills to use to do a whole series of things. The design team knew
>they needed to make things easy, non stressful, etc. etc. It is a paradox in
>some ways, that so much attention and sensitivity is shown for the use of a
>war machine and yet so little sensitivity is shown in products we use every
>day.
I don't know if it was sensitivity or simply requirements. The F16 must
remain controllable with the pilot subjected to 8+ g forces. Under those
conditions, the pilot's arm could weigh over 100 lbs, which is why they
make the controls so usable. Also, I priced a control handle from an F16
once, without switches, because we were considering it for a tractor
application. It was over $500 each in quantity. We ended up designing our
own ergonomic handle for a lot less cost. But it gives some idea of the
development effort behind it.
I was also intrigued by the comments that Apple software designers said
that one should not depend on color or sound for computer program
functionality. We are finding increased use of color, and occasionally
sound, in engineering software, for example to represent 4th and 5th
dimensional variables on engineering plots of vibration and engine
performance data. There is no other known way to do it, but in effect, it
would exclude from employment someone who was being considered for that
work, but was color vision or hearing disabled. Which seems to imply that
even some high tech professions may not be able to accomodate every
disability for every job.
--
Terry Quinn
Germantown Hills, IL
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