(Palo Alto, CA, April 30, 2018) — A pilot workshop was held on March 22nd in Los Angeles that for the first time brought technology designers and developers together with people with developmental disabilities (PwD). The workshop was a collaboration of the WITH Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting comprehensive healthcare for adults with developmental disabilities, and Sidebench, an award-winning technology consulting firm. The goal of the workshop was to promote greater inclusion and universal health technology design among its participants, and ultimately the broader design community.

“As our first foray into this approach, I couldn’t be happier,” said Ryan Easterly, Executive Director of the WITH Foundation. “It stimulated new ways of thinking, evoked empathy, and helped designers recognize the vast opportunities open when creating design that’s accessible to everyone.”

The day of the workshop was split into two sessions. The first session incorporated guest speakers and challenged assumptions on concepts such as persona spectrums, socio-political model of disability, inclusive design best practices, and the benefits of accessible design to everyone.  The second session engaged the designers in developing prototypes based on their learnings in the first session, and fostered interaction with PwD as user testers on those prototypes.

The workshop was successful in fostering a greater appreciation for society’s role at both creating and eliminating barriers. “The notion that ‘stairs make the building inaccessible, not the wheelchair,’ really resonated with participants,” said Easterly. He also noted the takeaway that designing more accessible products benefits everyone, not just PwD.

In addition, designers left the workshop with some specific design techniques that they could begin to immediately incorporate in their work to increase accessibility, such as using capital letters instead of lowercase, high contrasting colors, and obvious organization to represent hierarchy.

Moving forward, the WITH Foundation expects that future workshop iterations will attract attendees from increasingly diverse backgrounds and experiences, and the team will continuously review and refine the agenda, activities and facilitation as appropriate. This project is part of the Foundation’s Digital Health Initiative; to learn more, visit withfoundation.org/digital-health-initiative.


An estimated 1 billion people worldwide, including 40 million in the United States representing 18.7% of the population, have at least one disability. Though user testing and user research are typically an important part of the technology design process, people with disabilities are usually excluded from these considerations.

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Press Contact:

Laura Shumaker

Director of Communications, WITH

communications@withfoundation.org