Co-designing new keyboard and mouse solutions with people living with motor impairments
Rodolfo Cossovich, Steve Hodges, Jin Kang, Audrey Girouard · 2023 · Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2023) · doi:10.1145/3597638.3614549
Summary
This short paper describes a co-design process for developing accessible alternatives to traditional keyboard and mouse interfaces, conducted in collaboration with people living with motor impairments. The study involved three phases: an initial survey of 42 people with physical disabilities, in-depth interviews with 9 participants at their homes, and three co-design workshops pairing 26 designers (electronics engineers, UX designers, graphic and industrial designers) with three participants with motor impairments — one with hemiplegia who uses one hand, one with oligodactyly (five fingers total across both hands) who struggles with key combinations, and one university student with cerebral palsy who faces fine motor challenges with 3D modelling software. The workshops used the Jacdac open-source electronics prototyping platform to facilitate hands-on hardware prototyping. A key methodological innovation was having participants with motor impairments design guided simulation activities for the designers — rather than designers simulating disability on their own — creating authentic conversations where participants were positioned as experts directing the experience. The workshops progressed through brainstorming, technology familiarization, empathetic simulation, idea generation, paper prototyping, solution development with electronics, and user testing.
Key findings
The co-design workshops produced three functional prototypes: a mouse ring allowing single-hand typing and mouse control, a virtual keyboard using a joystick with a large LED panel display for single-button keystroke selection, and dedicated external buttons mapped to hard-to-press keyboard combinations. The study yielded eight recommendations for co-design activities. "Excuses work" — introducing guided technical exercises as ice-breakers naturally creates a flat, collaborative atmosphere. "Empowering participants" — having people with motor impairments design and lead simulation exercises positioned them as experts, a view that persisted throughout subsequent design activities. "Support each other, really" — the most successful prototypes came from teams where participants trusted designers' skills while designers genuinely consulted participants as experts. "Slower pace" — workshops needed 30-70% more time than comparable activities with non-disabled participants. For hardware prototyping, the study found that larger components were more accessible ("smaller is not better"), transparency about input-output relationships was critical for participant engagement, and that groups unfamiliar with technology tended toward less exploratory solutions like "a bigger keyboard" rather than novel interaction paradigms.
Relevance
This paper offers practical methodological guidance for researchers and designers conducting co-design with people with motor impairments. The shift from designer-led disability simulation to participant-designed guided experiences directly addresses longstanding critiques of empathy simulation exercises that can reduce disabled people to "non-designing bodies." The concept of "being with" rather than "being like" — drawn from Bennett and Rosner's work — provides a more ethical and productive framework for inclusive design. For accessibility practitioners, the finding that co-design sessions require significantly more time is an important planning consideration. The Jacdac prototyping platform demonstrates how accessible hardware tools can democratize the creation of custom input devices, moving beyond purely software-based assistive solutions. The paper reinforces that people with motor impairments are not a homogeneous group — each participant's needs and solutions were fundamentally different.
Tags: co-design · motor impairment · input devices · rapid prototyping · keyboard · mouse · human interface devices · participatory design