Ability or Disability - Design for Whom?

The dilemma addressed is how private homes and their residents change when the home becomes a hybrid of both workspace and private space. When assistivetechnologies designed for institutions enter the home, the everyday practicesof disabled persons and their relatives change in interaction with both theinstitutionalized artefacts and with the multiple actors involved in domiciliarycare. Based on ethnographic research of two implementations of assistivetechnologies in Denmark, the article discusses this dilemma and how it providesthe opportunity to rethink how assistive technologies are shaped in the interplaywith everyday life in private homes. Through an emphasis on embodiment, scriptand domestication, the authors illustrate how relations are developed or notdeveloped between the disabled person and the non-human artefacts