Neuroinclusive Design in Practice: Reducing Cognitive Demand Across Sectors
Neurodiversity challenges us to think differently about inclusive design. Rather than designing around individual diagnoses, this session will explore how environments, systems, and information place different cognitive, sensory, and executive demands on the people who use them.
Drawing on examples from transport, education, and the built environment, Kimberley Elsmore will explore how Human Factors approaches can help identify where seemingly simple tasks become cognitively demanding, particularly in unfamiliar, complex, or disrupted situations.
The session will explore practical ways to reduce cognitive and sensory demand, improve clarity and predictability, and design systems that support people when things don't go according to plan. Through discussion and an interactive exercise, participants will be encouraged to consider how these principles could be applied within their own sectors.
The aim isn't to provide a checklist for individual neurodivergent conditions, but to encourage a broader question: what are we asking people to perceive, understand, remember, and do, and does the design need to make it this difficult?
Our Speaker
Kim Elsmore (nee Harding) is a Human Factors Engineer with a particular interest in how we design environments and systems for the diversity of people who actually use them. Her work in neuroinclusive design spans rail, the built environment and specialist education, combining Human Factors approaches with lived experience and user-centred research.
She is Co-Chair of the Rail Industry Neuro-Inclusive Community (RINC) and is undertaking PhD research at Durham University exploring neurodiversity in rail. Kim regularly speaks, lectures and writes about neurodiversity, accessibility and inclusive design, with a particular focus on translating research into practical design decisions.
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