Diversity for design

Abstract

The neurodiversity movement seeks to positively reframe certain neurological conditions, such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and dyslexia, by concentrating on their strengths. In recent years, neurodiverse children have increasingly been involved in the technology design process, but the design approaches adopted have focused mostly on overcoming difficulties of working with these children, leaving their strengths untapped. We present a new participatory design (PD) framework, Diversity for Design (D4D), which provides guidance for technology designers working with neurodiverse children in establishing PD methods that capitalize on children's strengths and also support potential difficulties. We present two case studies of use of the D4D framework, involving children with ASD and dyslexia, showing how it informed the development and refinement of PD methods tailored to these populations. In addition, we show how to apply the D4D framework to other neurodiverse populations.

Involving Autistics in User Experience Studies

“…Benton et al [9] propose a guiding framework, named Diversity for Design (D4D), to adapt PD for ND children by taking their strengths and difficulties into account. They utilize previous structured teaching programs for autistic children and highlight the importance of adding minor situational modifications to the environment in order to meet each ND participant's individual needs for a better participation.…”

“…Digital ethnography (n=3) and digital probes (n=2) were also presented by several studies as a fruitful information resource especially when investigating daily experiences and social networks [29,31,46]. In D phase, where the autistics were least involved, PD sessions (n=14), workshops and focus groups (n=9) took place [9,21,30,49]. Most of the PD sessions were actually the studies where a model or concept was being established for including autistics in the design process [33,38], but not a product for their direct use.…”

“…In HCI field, recent aim is to create models for including ND users and their contributions in design processes [9,38]. Yet these studies mostly focus on the ND children or specific technologies.…”

Identifying Objectives for a Learning Space Management System with Value-focused Thinking

“…In participatory design, the following statements are understood as guiding principles: participants from diverse Table 1: Methodological approaches to achieve participation and involvement (Kujala, 2003 (Sanders et al, 2010;Sanoff, 2007), participants have the right to influence technological decisions affecting their private and professional lives (Bergvall-Kåreborn and Ståhlbrost, 2008), and especially, participatory design is seen as appropriate in the context of special needs (Benton et al, 2014;Frauenberger et al, 2011;Guha et al, 2008;Malinverni et al, 2014). Thus, we have based our workshops on participatory design to adopt these principles and we have implemented value-focused thinking as a requirements elicitation technique.…”

Codesign with people living with cognitive or sensory impairments: a case for method stories and uniqueness

“…Also, quite a few case studies have been reported involving children with autism (e.g. van Rijn, Sleeswijk Visser, and Stappers n.d.;Francis, Balbo, and Firth 2009;Millen, Cobb, and Patel 2011;Benton et al 2014), people with aphasia (e.g. McGrenere et al 2003;Moffatt et al 2004;Galliers et al 2012) and people with dementia (e.g.…”