Accessibility

How can we design accessible systems, services, spaces and products? Who gets left out by typical approaches to accessibility and why? This session discusses the history of "barrier-free" and accessible design, examines why chronic illness and neurodivergence have never been meaningfully included within those movements or the legislation and compliance frameworks that emerged from them, and suggests actionable approaches to create design outcomes that are as usable as possible for as many people as possible.

Inclusive Design

What does it mean for design to be meaningfully inclusive? Who and what tends to get left behind by processes that we claim are inclusive, and how do we make those processes better? This session examines how we can build equity and accessibility into our design research methods, from research screeners and co-design workshops, through to analysis and reporting.

Patient-Centered Medicine

Chronically ill people often struggle to access the answers and care that they need - the average time to diagnosis for an autoimmune disease is 4.5 years. Through their struggles, they also develop exceptional systems thinking skills, and insights into the gaps that are designed into healthcare systems and services. This session challenges audiences to ask: what can medicine learn from chronically ill people? How can we make healthcare systems work better for everyone by putting "difficult" patients at the helm?

Biohacking Chronic Illness

I've been chronically ill since I was four years old but my chronic illnesses weren't diagnosed until I was thirty. Even once I had answers about what was going on in my body, I couldn't get any treatment from my doctors. I was not actively dying, but I had no quality of life. I was sleeping upwards of 14 hours a day, had no circadian rhythm and was in constant severe pain. I realized if someone was going to save my life it would have to be me, so I applied my background in pathobiology to solve the molecular mechanisms underlying my most debilitating symptoms, then identified potential therapeutic agents I could access in the form of over-the-counter drugs and plant medicines. I artificially restored my circadian rhythm, brought my Epworth Sleepiness Scale from a 21 to a 2, regained my driver's license, grew two inches as the muscles in my back relaxed and, for the first time in my life, gained the ability to not only walk without pain, but to run and lift weights.

This session touches on how and why healthcare fails chronically ill patients, and tells an inspiring, empowering, challenging story of one patient who managed to beat the system.