Interactions - March/April 2013

the aspects relating to the interaction design domain, we might build a clear picture of how neurodiversity HCI might add to HCI design practice.

• We need to create resources and educational materials to help interaction designers be informed about the many differing cognitive styles in the user population.

• As part of this process, we need to understand the impact of neurodiverse conditions on our own constituent disciplines. For example, dyslexia is known to have a high occurrence in many top art and design schools. There are many perceptions in computing about autistic-spectrum individuals, but we have no clear data on this. This lack of self-knowledge needs to be remedied. Knowledge is needed about how far the design community is from the actual user population and how this frames approaches and problems.

• Human-centered design methods and protocols need to be studied to identify ones that should be questioned, revised, or remodeled.

• We must start developing neurodiverse design protocols and methods—for example, for participatory design and requirements elicitation—and begin adapting existing ones maintained by a strong process of empirical work and theoretical reflection.

• We need to form collaborations with the neurodiverse, not just their caregivers, charities, or other sources of support. By reaching out to this group we can engage in participatory user-centered design.

• We must begin working with
neurodiverse designers and lis-
tening to them. Interaction is
dominated by the neurotypical. By
creating an explicit presence for
neurodiverse designers, we can
reduce the gap between the design
team and target user groups. We
need to encourage neurodiverse
designers and realize their value
beyond inclusive design. For
example, when designing for the
799 million illiterate adults world-
wide, openly dyslexic designers
can contribute a unique critical
perspective to the design team.

fied with just overcoming their deficiencies. Neurodiversity HCI should seek ways to exploit the neurodiverse population’s gifts, which would also yield benefits to the greater world.

Neurodiversity is still a relatively young and evolving movement and is likely to evolve over the next 20 years as much as it has over the past 20. A new voice is emerging, and we have a duty to listen. Neurodiversity is not, and has never been, a new form of political correctness. It is not a new polite term to cover a collection of cognitive impairments. It is a mutiny of the disabled, sometimes striking at the very charities that exist for them. As designers of “tools for thinking with,” practitioners of neurodiversity HCI should exist as part of this cognitive insurgency.

Acknowledgments I would like to thank Will Farr, Janet van der Linden, Eva Hornecker, and Ruth Dalton for their kind comments and assistance.

ENDNOTES:

1. Armstrong, T. Neurodiversity: Discovering the Extraordinary Gifts of Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Brain Differences. Da Capo, Cambridge, MA, 2010. 2. Cooper, R. Dyslexia. In Neurodiversity in Higher Education: Positive Responses to Specific Learning Differences. D. Pollak, ed. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, U.K., 2009. 3. Dix, A. The right mind? ACM SIGCHI Bulletin - a supplement to interactions. ACM, 2001, 6. 4. Finkelstein, V. The social model of disability repossessed. Coalition: the Magazine of the Greater Coalition of Disabled People. (Feb. 2002), 10-16.

Conclusion

The neurodiversity literature is awash with the names of gifted individuals who also seem to have experienced many cognitive hindrances: Paul Dirac for autism and Asperger’s, Mozart and Shakespeare for ADHD, Einstein for dyslexia. These are some who found a way of exploiting their gifts rather than being satis-

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nick Sheep Dalton studied engi-
neering design and appropriate
technology at Warwick University.
His Ph.D. was in virtual environ-
ments at UCL, where he also
founded the M.Sc. in virtual envi-
ronments at the Bartlett School of Architecture. He
now is a lecturer and HCI researcher in ubiquitous
computing at the Open University.