Design Your Life

This project is now archived and was part of DDW24

This project is part of
DesignUnited.Expo Changing Gears

The Design Your Life Toolkit

Alexandru Amariei

The Design Your Life Toolkit helps autistic young adults design their own supportive devices. To do this, the toolkit consists of several creative design activities that end users can use at home or a care organisation; alone or together with a trusted other.

Neurodiversity and Supportive Technology

Supportive technology can help autistic young adults gain more autonomy in everyday life, including in the areas of (semi-)independent living, education, and employment. Unfortunately, the uptake of supportive technology remains low. One of the main issues is that the design of supportive devices relies too heavily on a medical model of autism. In Design Your Life, we therefore explored an alternative neurodiversity-based approach. We sought to create a toolkit to provide autistic young adults with the means to design their own supportive devices. In line with neurodiversity, the design process must do justice to the lived experiences and unique support needs of the end user. The Design Your Life Toolkit consists of design methods and techniques that guide the end user through six design phases, from ideation and concept development to realisation, testing and evaluation. A unique feature about the toolkit is that it is designed to be used at home or in a healthcare organisation and does not require the supervision of a professional designer.