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Words are not enough: empowering people with aphasia in the design process

This paper explores the issue of empowering participants in design when they do not have the language skills integral to many design methods. We describe the challenges, solutions reached and lessons learned whilst employing a participatory design (PD) approach in the development of a prototype computer therapy tool for people with aphasia, a communication disorder.
 Our approach was workshop based. During a series of participatory workshop sessions, five people with aphasia, employed as consultants, took part in game-playing activities followed by hands-on interaction with a series of iterative prototypes. The challenges we faced arose primarily from the consultants' difficulties with the production and comprehension of language, both textual and verbal, and with the retention of information. The strategies and techniques we devised to cope with these challenges evolved over the course of the workshop sessions. We discuss these and how to involve and empower users with cognitive impairments, in the context of a broadening scope of PD practices.