Assistive Strategy

Any approach, technique, or workaround that a disabled person develops to navigate inaccessibility and meet their needs. Unlike formal assistive technologies, assistive strategies may be informal, improvised, and deeply personal—ranging from choosing specific providers to managing identity disclosure to making calculated trade-offs between competing risks. Research with marginalized disabled communities reveals that the most effective assistive strategies are often developed by disabled people themselves through lived experience, rather than being designed by researchers or technologists.