NeuroSpectrum

User-center design | Product design | Inclusive design
Individual Project (Mar. 2024 - Sep. 2024)
A set of activities and multisensory (visual, tactile and auditory) puzzles for students to eliminate misconceptions around neurodiversity and celebrate everyone’s unique mindsets.

Design Challenges

Problem

The exclusion, harrassment and/or bullying of neurodivergent students in middle school.

Personal Experience

Growing up in New Zealand (NZ), I often saw "special" figures in my school — students who, sometimes accompanied by a support teacher, sat apart from the rest of us. They behaved differently and barely having peer relationships. I always wished for a better understanding of their world.

Although the project’s research and tests are grounded in NZ, the outcomes are potentially applicable to countries promoting inclusive education.

Desktop Research

Interviews

Persona

Both students have just started their Year 8 at Auckland Grammar School and they are all new to their classmates.

Insights

Design Aim

Instead of ‘healing’ neurodivergent individuals to fit the social norms of neurotypical individuals, could we educate all students to understand and appreciate differences by reducing social barriers caused by sensory differences and varied understandings?

Design Goals

In researching popular icebreaker classroom games, I see some common traits that contribute to an effective and inclusive game:

Play by All

Encourage Uniqueness

Multi-sensory

The neurodivergent student should not be the only user or opposite user of the neurotypical students

Students’ discussion and creation should be guided but not predetermined. Free actions is encouraged.

Have more than one way to communicate therefore reduce language barriers. However, it is important to make sure it is not over-stimulating that would cause sensory overload.

Experiments

Colour and Visual Experiment

I created a variety of distinctive shapes and forms to support the communication of feelings and moods.
By asking people to use the visuals to express themselves: , I selected 5 basic shapes, 12 additional shapes, and 6 different materials to further explore.

Puzzle Shape Experiment

I printed and tested several shapes to ensure the safety and accessibility.

Material Experiment

Clay

Cotton-Padded Fabric

Fluffy Fabric

Felt

Silicone with flocking surface

Silicone

Materials were tested to be able to communicate a diverse range of feelings.

Draft Activity Process

User Testing

Based on the user tests, I decided to make the following changes:

More Ways to Express: Adding sound puzzles as a way to help connecting each other during the collaborative stage (6).
Flexible Combinations: Creating tactile add-ons for each basic puzzle, allowing users to build diverse multi-sensory combinations.