Disability co-design: Sam Connor’s digital project experience

I’m old, really old.

I turn fifty this year.  My older friends will roll their eyes and look at me with an annoyed expression when I say this – but believe me, I am old. Especially when it comes to technology.

If you’re my age and an average Australian, have you ever tried to program a set top box? Or work out a new piece of technology? Have you ever tried to keep up with the lightning fast brains of teenagers who can easily navigate any number of complex technologies and virtual environments?

That’s why I was surprised (and immensely pleased) to be invited to be a member of the National Disability Insurance Agency’s Digital Innovation Reference Group. It’s one of the Cool Kids Club, especially for ageing disabled women who have only recently upgraded their phones from an iPhone 4S.

I’m working within a sea of tech giants, disabled and non-disabled. There’s Sean, the DIRG Chairperson and the Managing Director of C3 Solutions, an assistive technology firm. Sven, the former President of the Australian Deafblind Council and a ridiculously clever individual with an impeccable sense of style. Christopher Hills, a young business owner, video producer and editor from the Apple Consultants Network. He’s the founder of Switched-On Video Editing and has the most ridiculously positive attitude of any man alive – he should be really annoying, but his enthusiasm is catching. There’s Gabby and Kate and me and a bunch of NDIA staff and others who are passionate about innovation and inclusion. And what we bring to the table with our lived experience of cerebral palsy and psychosocial disability and muscular dystrophy and neurodivergence and quadriplegia and deafblindness are as important as our experience in assistive technology and marketing and advocacy and social media evangelism and planning and innovation and policy development and accessibility and virtual media environments. This is truly a meeting of minds.  

The DIRG group works on a number of projects, but one has very recently been launched – the Nadia avatar. She’s an avatar who has been developed to provide disabled people with information about the NDIS when and how they want it.  

I don’t think I’ve ever worked on anything as exciting – and excepting my fangirling over Professor Mark Sagar (‘Avatar’, ‘Spiderman 2’) and actor Cate Blanchett, who voiced Nadia – one of the most exciting things for me was the genuine intent to actively co-design this project with disabled people.  

I’m old enough to be jaded about co-design and the involvement of disabled people in disability projects. I could build a house out of the taxi vouchers and Coles-Myer cards I’ve received in my lifetime and I could fill it with stale conference muffins.  But this wasn’t an attempt to tick a box – this was a genuine attempt to make sure we were at the forefront of this project and included the contribution of many voices who are rarely heard, through extensive testing and focus groups.

Nadia won’t be perfect to start with. She needs training to help build her knowledge base and that’s where we all come into it. Disabled people and their families currently hold the most valuable information about the National Disability Insurance Scheme and we have a tool that has the potential to liberate us from call centres and lack of information.

I’m looking forward to her being at our beck and call.  And perhaps, just perhaps, I feel a little bit less old after being a member of the Cool Kids Club.