What Can a Body Do?

Humans are inextricably connected with our tools - from the explicit (can openers) to the unnoticed (t-shirts) to the systemic (building architecture and urban design). This book investigates who these tools are designed for, who designs them, how they're designed and evaluated, and what happens when we expand the aperture of those current answers. Hendren viscerally demonstrates the power and importance of focusing on the mismatches that particular individuals face and meeting them with design. Rather than aiming for products that scale uniformly across large masses of people, this approach advocates for developing and scaling design processes.

This book is an engaging mix of personal anecdotes and rigorous academic research and theory. The historical background on some of the issues examined in this book, while necessarily brief, still provides tantalizing perspectives that interested readers can follow up on. This is a vital, one of a kind book. Highly recommend