The connection of user experience design and disability support
During my years as a disability support worker, several critical moments shaped how I understand people with disabilities and how to support them effectively.
The first important realization was learning to break activities down into their smallest components. Later, when I studied UX design, I discovered this approach had a name—it's called Atomic Design principles.
One day, an occupational therapist (OT) was working with a client I regularly supported. While observing, I asked how they approached tasks differently.
The OT used cooking as an example, breaking down something as simple as making hot water with a kettle—filling it with water, carrying it to the base, positioning it correctly, turning it on. I suddenly realized how many steps I'd forgotten existed because they'd become automatic to me. I'd gone blind to the complexity hidden in "simple" tasks.
Since then, I've focused on these small steps. Whenever someone faces difficulty, I break the process down and build it back up one layer at a time, helping them develop the skills and confidence to complete the full action.
This breaking-down process led to another realization: there are many ways for people with disabilities to participate in activities, not just one "correct" way.
I used to think participation meant doing things the same way as everyone else — and I didn't realise I held that assumption until it was challenged.
One day, a person with a disability joined our exercise group. They didn't follow the instructor. They moved differently, engaged on their own terms. My instinct was to wonder if the client were really "participating." But then I caught myself — the person showed up, they were present, they were part of the group. That was their way in.
That moment shifted something in me. I stopped measuring participation against a single standard and started asking: what does engagement actually look like for this person? It's the same question I now bring to UX research — resisting the assumption that users should behave a certain way, and instead watching closely for what they're actually doing and why.
I stopped asking "why do they struggle with this?" and started asking "what's making this hard?" I learned that there is no single correct way to participate — people engage differently, and that's not a problem to fix. That's something to design for. Before I knew what UX was, I was already practicing it.