Participatory design for users with impairments affecting cognitive functions and communication skills

Involving people with impairments in the design process is very challenging, especially when impairments affect cognitive functions or communication. People with such impairments may have substantial problems with thought processes and communication, including understanding abstractions, sequencing thoughts and actions, understanding symbols, and interpreting social cues. Many participatory design techniques are based on these processes and are therefore not usable, or need to be adjusted for people with impairments. This workshop aims to exchange experiences with participatory design techniques that were designed for, or adapted to people with impairments. Since many of these techniques are highly focused on specific target groups, a further aim is to extract general principles and to generate guidelines for involving users with impairments in the design process. © 2012 ACM.