My Needs App: a digital tool to support neurodiverse people
We are pleased to share that we have secured funding to continue developing our co-designed My Needs App (Myne App) which supports Autistic and neurodiverse people to communicate their needs to healthcare and other services.
We have been working with West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, people with living and learnt experience of neurodiversity and Hive IT to co-design an app that will reduce the barriers people with neurodiverse conditions may face when accessing healthcare and other services. The initial need for this tool, and the idea that it should be digital, came directly from families in the Wakefield area with neurodiverse needs.
The primary focus of the work was to support Autistic and neurodiverse children and young people (and their families). However from early on in the development process, it became clear that the tool itself may be used by, and be of benefit to, wider groups of children, young people and adults.
The concept is a dynamic digital resource that will support the user to express the things that are most important to them, including their needs and adjustments.
The app will allow the user to store and share the following information:
Name preferences and pronouns
Needs or adjustments - in their own words or from a library of suggested needs
“Status” update (how I’m doing today)
Information about my condition(s), what it means for me and diagnosis status (only what I want to share)
Special interests and things that might help me engage (conversation starters)
Things I don’t want to talk about (difficult subjects) and triggers
Phase one
We recently completed phase one of the project which resulted in a co-designed non-functioning prototype. We developed the prototype iteratively, co-designing and testing it with children and young people, parent/carers and staff who work in services who may receive information from the app (for example, health services, education providers, personal care and sports/fitness providers). We are really grateful to everyone who spent time with us to share their stories, ideas and feedback on the app during this first phase.
Image one and two are designs from our non-functioning prototype.
What’s next
Phase two of the project will involve developing a working minimal viable product (MVP) of the app - this means we will be using the app design we created in phase one, and collaborating with the brilliant team at Hive IT again to create the first working version of the app.
We will start by building the features of the app that are most important in helping people to express their needs. From there we plan to support an initial group of users to use the app and look at how this works for them and the impact that it has on their interactions with services. During this phase we will also be exploring longer term development and direction of the product as well as ensuring it is safe, compliant and sustainable. We will continue to work in partnership with West Yorkshire Health and Care partnership and further co-design and test the app with people with living and learnt experience of neurodiversity. This is one of the core principles underpinning this work.
Find out more
If you are interested in finding out more about this work, or getting involved in inputting to the co-design or testing of the app in this next phase, please get in touch with Kirstin Blackwell via email; info@thrivebydesign.org.uk