This is difficult for the design team because as of yet we have not found an effective way to coordinate the contact and student schedules to facilitate the first meeting. Valuable design time is often lost playing phone tag. We have simple paper applications. They ask for client, contact, description of client, clients needs to be met with the assistive technology device. The client gets a well thought out design based on their needs instead of based on what is available in a catalog.
Students prepare and present a poster on their projects.
The fixed or improved device is returned to the client. Other experiences that are particular to our class include the following activities. These exercises help the students become more aware of issues relating to these special problems. Preferably they jot down notes as they occur and then do a summary at the end of the week. The observations are often very telling.