Toward a Competency-based Approach to Co-designing Technologies with People with Intellectual Disability
Andrew A. Bayor, Margot Brereton, Laurianne Sitbon, Bernd Ploderer, Filip Bircanin, Benoit Favre, Stewart Koplick · 2021 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3450355
Summary
This paper proposes a Competency-based design approach for co-designing technologies with people with intellectual disability, extending Wobbrock et al.'s influential ability-based design framework. While ability-based design focuses on what users "can do" rather than their disabilities, it works best when abilities can be clearly measured—primarily physical and sensory capabilities. For people with intellectual disability, whose cognitive, physical, sensory, and practical abilities vary along a spectrum and are often complicated by co-occurring impairments, defining generalizable abilities is challenging. The authors introduce "competencies" as the foundation for design: representative practical skills that people develop through participation in everyday activities, particularly mainstream technologies like social media. Unlike abstract abilities, competencies are contextually expressed and observable. For example, all participants in their study had developed competencies for searching YouTube, recognizing social media icons (associating the bell with notifications, the magnifying glass with search), sharing content, and navigating menus—despite varying cognitive abilities. The research describes a two-year co-design study at a Disability Support Organization in Brisbane, Australia, involving 27 young adults aged 18-34 with intellectual disability across three phases. Phase I explored technology participation through surveys and interviews. Phase II used "TechShops"—collaborative workshops that engaged participants in contextual social media activities to reveal their competencies. Phase III applied the RAID (Reflective Agile Iterative Design) methodology to co-design SkillsTube, a web application that helps users learn life skills through curated YouTube videos.
Key findings
The SkillsTube app demonstrates how competency-based design works in practice. All design features were grounded in observed competencies: social media-inspired icons leveraged participants' functional associations; consistent color coding (blue for primary actions, red for cancel) reflected Facebook and YouTube conventions; voice search with manual start/stop resolved YouTube's problematic auto-timeout that cut off slower speakers. Two innovative solutions emerged from recognizing competency limitations. Participants couldn't remember login credentials despite training, so the team implemented QR code authentication—participants could print and laminate their codes, leveraging their competence with taking selfies and handling physical objects. Similarly, adding friends by email address failed because participants couldn't remember addresses, so friend requests were redesigned around QR code scanning, which required in-person permission and leveraged familiar photo-taking skills. The Competency-based design framework comprises three phases: (1) Revealing Competencies through participatory engagement with mainstream technology; (2) Designing with Competencies by prototyping features that reflect shared, representative skills; and (3) Enhancing Competencies by including features that support skill development even beyond current abilities. Throughout, designers must consider the socio-technical context—the role of support staff, proxies, and the environment where technology will be used. Critically, the framework extends ability-based design by reframing the "abilities stance" around observable competencies rather than measurable physical capabilities, making it applicable to users whose abilities are contextually dependent and variable.
Relevance
This paper addresses a significant gap in accessible design methodology: how to apply user-centered frameworks when users have cognitive impairments that make abilities difficult to define or measure. The Competency-based approach offers practical guidance applicable beyond intellectual disability to any population with complex, varying, or context-dependent abilities—including older adults and people with multiple disabilities. The key insight for practitioners is that mainstream technology participation (particularly social media) provides a common foundation of competencies that can be leveraged in design. Rather than starting from deficits or attempting to measure abstract abilities, designers can observe how users engage with familiar platforms and build on those existing skills. This shifts design from accommodation to empowerment. The paper also demonstrates that accessibility for intellectual disability requires designing for the entire socio-technical system, not just the interface. Support structures, proxies (staff, family), and environmental context are integral to successful technology use. The SkillsTube design deliberately leveraged the DSO's support infrastructure, recognizing that participants would seek help from staff—a strength to design for rather than a limitation to eliminate. For organizations building accessible applications, the paper provides concrete patterns: using familiar iconography from popular platforms, implementing alternative authentication methods (QR codes) when passwords fail, designing voice input with user-controlled timing, and incorporating social features that facilitate peer engagement and skill sharing.
Tags: intellectual disability · co-design · participatory design · ability-based design · cognitive accessibility · social media · accessible design methodology