1
Core77 & Autism Speaks
I first became interested in Autism because I submitted a design to Autism Connects, an international design challenge sponsored by Core77 and Autism Speaks. The challenge asked students to help individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) better connect with the world around them and allow people who do not have ASD to better understand and connect with those who do. My design for WeSync won the juried prize and the community prize, and I was invited to present it to top Autism researchers, educators,and parents of kids on the spectrum at the 2011 International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR). Though my design was only a prototype, I received excellent feedback. I was moved by how many people were excited about the way it looked, functioned, and how it might fit into their daily lives. I laid out a plan for research and spent my thesis year listening to and working with the Autism community.

2
Interviews
I interviewed nearly 40 parents, teachers, and specialists about the challenges of organizing caring for a person with Autism. Through these conversations, I learned that caregiving can be as isolating and stressful as it is rewarding, that coordinating care amongst family and professionals can often be a challenge, and that many careplans contain an exhaustive amount of paperwork.

3
Card Sort
I developed a card sort at the suggestion of my thesis advisor, Rob Giampietro. Card sorting is a technique for finding the best way to organize content in an interface design. With the help of a Mom of a kid with ASD, I created 50 cards with words and phrases of potential content. Then, potential users were asked to rearrange the cards into into groups or clusters and name the those categories as they see fit. Learning how users view the content, rather than myself, provided valuable input. I incorporated these viewpoints into the new prototype for WeSync.

4
Observation & Play
For six months, I volunteered weekly to play with a 4-year old boy who has Autism. We did puzzles, drew pictures, and raced imaginary cars. I had the privilege of trying to see the world from his perspective, and witnessed some of the ups and downs of caring for a kid on the spectrum. There were sad days when he faced the wall crying for reasons that I did not know or understand. Then there were breakthrough days, like the first time he said my name aloud. I met biweekly to observe his teachers, therapists, parents, and volunteers and began to understand their lives as well. I observed how they communicated with each other. I realized that when they talk, it is less often to compare hard data, like a 24% percent decrease in whatever. More often, they would share stories or moments about the time they last spent with the child. Learning this directly influenced the decision to include more stories, photos, videos, and emotive components in my second prototype for WeSync. Finding more human ways to track data became my new challenge.