| Technological devices play an increasingly more important role in our lives with every passing year. They assist us with learning, communicating, playing, and with many other facets of everyday life. There is a subset of our population that suffers from hemiparesis and they are at a great disadvantage when it comes to the utilization of these devices. Specifically, children with hemiparesis have lost or never had the full use of one side of their body due to damage to their brain. These children suffer cognitive, gross motor, fine motor, coordination, and mobility deficits. They cannot interface with technology like children who do not have this disability.;Technological devices should have been developed with design principles in order to ensure they are effective and satisfying to use. Current design principles make a very powerful recipe for devices that children with hemiparesis should be able to use effectively. A survey of two organizations working with children with hemiparesis revealed that most devices did not conform to these design principles in ways that made them useful for children with hemiparesis. The smart phone and tablet design proved most effective but an additional design principle focused on on-boarding new users may enhance their usability. This research brings awareness to the population of children with hemiparesis who are under-served by current technology design. It contribute to hardware design principles for building technological devices by listing challenges these children face while interacting with devices, exploring how current design principles address these challenges, and by suggesting potential hardware design principles that will make better devices for children with hemiparesis. |
