SEED PROJECT: Design Café – Innovation Through Lived Experience

About the Project

Researcher Name: Matthew McShane

About

This project explores the implementation of the Design Café within a community-based setting. People with a disability often encounter small tasks throughout everyday activities that prevent them from finishing the activity. Throughout a day, these small hassles have a cumulative impact for the individual who is left feeling frustrated and deflated. These small tasks are often overlooked, fall through the cracks or are not addressable with existing assistive technology (AT). The Design Café promotes co-designed solutions for these everyday hassles/issues. We focus on designing for ability, by creating meaningful and lasting design solutions to enhance everyday items for people with disability.

Aim and objective

Our project aims to understand what ‘co-design’ of AT means for people with disability and other key stakeholders. We aim to foster an inclusive design environment by applying co-deign principles throughout all stages of the design process. This project provides a voice for people with a disability to discuss barriers they directly face and areas of personal importance they would like explored, while providing an environment to work collaboratively with a team to design personal solutions.

This project will complete a process evaluation of the Design Café when implemented within a community setting to inform planning for sustainable implementation into service.

Expected Outcomes

Findings from this project will expand the knowledge-base and conceptualisation of co-design of AT from the perspectives of people with disability, establish the feasibility, utility and outcomes of the Design Café, and support the development of an implementation plan within the partnering and other organisations.

Expected Impact

People with disability will be able to clearly demonstrate the need for, and lead, bespoke and collaborative AT design processes, while defining what co-design in this context should look like. Through the co-design process, people with disability will co-design and trail personalise AT solutions that may have short and longer term positive impacts on engagement, health and wellbeing.

Results

This project is commencing in the second half of 2024.

People/organisations involved

Matthew McShane – Griffith University, THC, GIF

Camilia Shirota – Griffith University, THC

Louise Gustafsson – Griffith University, THC

Vincent Moug – Griffith University, QCAD

Lachlan Pascoe – Griffith University, SHS

Frances Porter – Spinal Life Australia

Emily Allan – QLD Health

Melissa Wallace – QLD Health

The project is in partnership with Spinal Life Australia, and the Queensland Spinal Cord Injury Service’s Transitional Rehabilitation Program and the Spinal Outreach Team.

Project status and timeframe

August 2024: