Inclusive Design: cognitive disabilities, neurodiversity, and chronic illness Ted Drake, Intuit UX Australia 2022

Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Nation

Agenda ● Explore neurodiversity leaders ● UX Principles ● Cognitive Load ● Short term memory ● Content Design ● Readability ● Sickle Cell Pain and Anxiety

Ted Drake (He, Him) Intuit’s Accessibility and Inclusive Design Leader ● 20+ Years in Accessibility ● International speaker and event coordinator ● Yahoo! Accessibility Lab ● BFA: Fine Art (Painting, Printmaking, and Photography) ● Web Developer

I do not have lived experiences

Ashlea McKay @AshleaMcKay

Laurel Beyers laurelbeyers.com

Lona Moore lonamoore.com

Gareth Ford Williams ab11y.com

René Brooks blackGirlLostKeys.com

Jamie Knight and Lion JamieAndLion.com

No single experience or solution

UX Principles - Cognitive Accessibility ● Use standard elements ● Check your affordances and signifiers ● Simplify interfaces ● Communicate clearly ● Build in redundant interaction methods ● Use consistent patterns ● Design for recognition rather than recall ● Vary stimuli to capture attention ● Deliver effective feedback and notification ● Give users control and choice

Affordance and Signifier The doors have the affordance of opening in one direction. Each side has different shaped handles. ● Which signifier suggests a pull direction? ● Which signifier suggests a push direction? What if they were switched?

Cognitive Load Cognitive load is the amount of working memory or short-term memory someone is using. Minimizing the cognitive load it takes to use your product or service makes it more accessible for people with cognitive disabilities.

When technology communicates and behaves well, it enables you to do what you want to, on your terms. It communicates in ways that allow you to focus, and achieve the level of concentration you need to accomplish a task. - Respecting Focus: A behavior guide for Intelligent Systems (Microsoft)

How can we reduce cognitive load? ● Simple instead of Complex ○ Which content actually serves a purpose. Leave out all the rest. ● Easy to understand content ○ Intuit’s readability target is 5th to 8th grade ● Use videos and illustrations to support content ● Clear affordances and signifiers ● Use headings and lists to make content scannable ● Consistent layout ● Label icons with visible text

“As a rule, people don’t like to puzzle over things. They enjoy puzzles in their place– when they want to be entertained or diverted or challenged– but not when they’re trying to find out what time their dry cleaner closes.” –Steve Krug, Don’t Make Me Think

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Design for Short Term Memory ● Focus on Recognition instead of Recall ● Provide tools that aid in decision making ● Have the system do some of the work for the user ● Response time must be fast ● Change the color of visited links ● Provide help in context instead of external resource

Content Design

Direct and simple language ● Avoid euphemisms ● Avoid language that is culturally dependent ● Use 5-6 Grade reading level “Can it be substituted for something clearer or more literal? (The answer is often yes.) Think about what the term actually means and describe that.” - Intuit Content Design, Abolish Racist Language

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Multimodal learning experiences Car rides are evil. Commence midnight zoomies. Kitty kitty soft kitty warm kitty little ball of furr jump five feet high and sideways when a shadow moves touch water with paw then recoil in horror or i love cats i am one wake up scratch humans leg for food then purr then i have a and relax and hell is other people and am in trouble, roll over, too cute for human to get mad. Slap the dog because cats rule. Lasers are tiny mice Sleeping in the box i could pee on this if i had the energy yet jump launch to pounce upon little yarn mouse, bare fangs at toy run hide in litter box until treats are fed chirp at birds and get video posted to internet for chasing red dot, and roll on the floor purring your whiskers off.

Typography ● Use left alignment ● Respect user preferences for color and size ● “Dyslexic Fonts” are not a solution ● Use headings and lists Avoid ● Large blocks of centered text ● Justified alignment ● Black/white contrast

Inclusive Design for Pain and Anxiety

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Pain is a suffering. Suffering is a torture. Pain memory sticks with you long after the crisis. It causes Post-Traumatic Stress and anxiety. - Hertz Nazaire

Improve this form

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Remove Extraneous Inputs Treat the crisis first. Get additional information later ● Patient information after treatment ● “Guarantor” - Use simple language ● Emergency Contact - looking for another payee, embarrassing ● Remove Sex, Race, Marital Status ● Add primary doctor

Updated form

Focus on the Core Purpose Facilitate immediate treatment for the crisis. ● Critical information ● Who is the primary doctor? ● What is the pain level? ● What treatment is effective? ● What medication do you take? ● What complications do you have?

Patient Expertise Warriors knows their body. ● They want to be respected for their self-advocacy ● believed for their pain levels ● and the seriousness of the crisis.

Quick Fill + Details Too much pain to fill out this form! ● Checkboxes and simple inputs for fast, important information ● Critical information first ● Notes for details ● Readability: 5-6 grade level

In Summary ● Focus on your customer’s purpose ○ Optimize their experience, not yours ● Trust your customer’s expertise ● Your customer may not be the person interacting with your design ● Use simple language ● Don’t ask for non-essential information ● Follow design standards for vision, cognitive, and mobility

When you meet one person with autism…

Include neurodivergent people in customer research.

Additional Resources ● Cognitive and Learning Disabilities Accessibility Task Force (Coga TF) ● UX Principles that include Cognitive Accessibility (Ab11y) ● COGA: Cognitive Accessibility User Research ● Making Content Usable for People with Cognitive and Learning Disabilities

Questions