Adapting Design Workshops for Autistic Adults

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

10-22-2025

Abstract

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disability that impacts one's social communication and interaction. When left unsupported, this can increase the amount of loneliness felt by autistic people. Communication technology, such as AAC, can be helpful in supporting social communication, especially when co-designed with autistic people. We conducted a series of design workshops to co-design a new AAC system specifically supporting social communication. In this paper, we focus on the accessibility issues that were identified when running our workshops and provide recommendations on how to improve the process. We found that it is critical to build support for information processing time into the workshops, include a variety of AAC stakeholders, and create a shared vocabulary between the workshop participants to make design workshops more accessible to autistic adults.

Publication Title

Assets 2025 Proceedings of the 27th International ACM Sigaccess Conference on Computers and Accessibility

ISBN

[9798400706769]

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