Neurodiversity and Design

18th April - 18:30

Join us for an evening of learning how you can make your organisations more inclusive to Neurodivergent communities. Learn how to research and design with from a perspective of scientific knowledge and lived experience.

And, for the groups quarterly newsletter on the latest technology, design research and events, please sign-up to: https://innerdiamond.org

Schedule
18:30 - Introduction to the meet-up group and topic
18:40 - 18:55 - Inclusion as a goal: my own story of trial and error - Aleksandra Melnikova
18:55 - 19:10 Neurodivergent cognitive design & co-creating inclusive research practice - Ashley Peacock
19:10 - 7:25pm - A11Y - Gareth Ford-Williams
7:25 - Audience Q&A and Panel discussions
7:45 - Closing

Gareth Ford-Williams
Gareth founded the BBC’s Digital Accessibility Team. Over the course of the first 3 years the Accessibility Team worked as an integral part of iPlayer’s core Product Team. He has over a decade of experience in the accessibility and inclusion space, being Neurodivergent himself. Gareth has an interest in accessible typography, cognitive design and all things accessibility. He director of Ab11y.com.

Ashley Peacock
Ashley has over 10 years of experience building technology for minority populations and founded Passio, a consultancy that built assistive and accessible technology for businesses, universities, and public bodies. At Passio, Ashley championed inclusive design and technology, creating bespoke co-production processes and testing with diverse user-groups. She now works at AbilityNet, working on diverse user-research, delivering workshops and auditing technology to make sure it is accessible. In her free time, she is a writer, researcher, and public speaker, and volunteers for UXForChange.

Ashley is studying Humanistic therapy to enhance her research skills when working with diverse individuals, particularly when facilitating groups who have experienced trauma and mental health challenges.

Aleksandra Melnikova
Aleks is a co-founder of Cosmic Velocity, a London-based service design agency who design inclusive digital products, services and training. Their mission is to make the world more inclusive by design.

Before starting Cosmic, she has led various design teams across top UX/product design agencies such as ORM, Foolproof, BIO, Radley Yeldar, Publicis Poke and Inviqa (ex-Webcredible), delivering successful products and services with and for many clients in travel, finance, real estate, and healthcare, as well as internal audiences.

Tools she has designed and launched helped people and teams find books for kids with diverse representation, find inclusive imagery and content and make research activities inclusive.