The relationship between the user and the assistive technology is affected by a variety of cultural factors. Although individuals are always distinct from their cultures (Ripat & Woodgate, 2010) and some people may belong to several cultural groups (Ali, Cheva-Isarakul, & Kharas, 2006), assistive technology designers must view their products with these four main areas in mind:

• Communication concerns
• Environmental concerns
• Ethnicity considerations
• Socioeconomic/political considerations

The guiding questions and examples in the following charts are meant to be used after a designer has identified a problem that needs to be solved or an issue that needs to be addressed through assistive technology.  The designer can then look at each of our main areas and each area’s corresponding sub-topics.  Within each sub-topic, we include a question pertaining to a device’s cultural adaptation followed by a general example and then how the question can be applied to two sample products: one is an assistive feeding device, and the other is a glucose monitoring app.

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