The Challenge

People with intellectual disability experience some of the worst health outcomes of any group in Australia. Previous platforms had tried to close that gap and fallen short: splitting content by cohort, applying accessibility as an afterthought, or fading once the funding did. UNSW's National Centre of Excellence in Intellectual Disability Health set out to change that with a single digital platform designed to genuinely serve three vastly different audiences: adults with intellectual disability, their families and carers, and health professionals.

The Approach

Portable worked with the National Centre team based at UNSW and its established community advisory group, which included adults with intellectual disability, carers, peer advocates, First Nations representatives, LGBTQI+ representatives, and health professionals.

Relational design and trauma-informed practice

We sent plain English pre-read materials to all test session participants at least 1 week in advance of the 1:1 website test interviews; so that people joining our research understood what to expect from the engagement, how their data and information would be collected, managed and deleted, ways they could participate or withdraw and, the different support options available to them and how to access those support options.

Our research participants were selected from the UNSW Advisory group, which means they have familiarity with design research, joining Zoom calls, providing feedback and sharing their thoughts on different things.

By setting expectations early and reengaging a group familiar with the format of online, remote research, we reduced the potential for engagement to feel overwhelming, which lowers the potential for distress or trauma to occur.

The team took three key steps to make the site work for people with intellectual disability:

Designed for people with intellectual disability first. The site’s structure, content, and interface were shaped around their needs from the start. The team then tested how those choices worked for everyone else.
Found safer ways to meet risky requirements. An early request for an unmoderated community forum carried legitimate concern. Instead, the site links visitors with community groups in their area, so Our Health Space (OHS) can bring people together without needing to oversee direct contact between them.
Pre launch testing. A final round of research at the end of the build confirmed earlier findings and gave the team one last chance to refine the site.

The Outcome

Our Health Space was shaped through co-design with adults with intellectual disability. The early prototypes received an encouraging response from research participants, a sign that the design gave them the same polish and respect as services built for everyone else.

The platform brings curated health information and plain-language resources together, with features designed around how people actually use it:

Easy read versions that switch on with a single setting
Highlighted words that open a plain explanation with one tap
The option to hide topics people aren’t ready to see
A quick exit button and an “I need help now” link at the top of the site.

Portable also built content pages that teach everyday browser accessibility skills:

Having a page read aloud
Making text bigger
Translating a page into another language.

We designed content pages that teach browser-based accessibility skills, so the people who use this platform carry those capabilities to any website, not just this one.

Shared tools give people with intellectual disability and their health professionals the same information to work from, supporting more collaborative, self-directed health care.

Our Health Space soft-launched to University of New South Wales (UNSW) partners in March 2026 and is now publicly available.

Reflections

“Working with Portable was a genuine pleasure because it felt like working not just with a team, but as one team, including our colleagues with lived experience of intellectual disability. We shared a strong sense of values throughout the project, including a commitment to ensuring the First Nations stream was approached with care and sensitivity. I trusted them to create something accessible, culturally responsive, and meaningful in the everyday lives of the people at the centre of this work.”
Dr Grace Sharkey, Project Manager: Knowledge Exchange
National Centre of Excellence in Intellectual Disability Health

What this means for organisations like yours

Any organisation serving people across age, ability, or digital confidence faces a version of this challenge. When the gap between your least and most experienced audience is wide, the instinct is often to design for the middle, or to add accessibility tools after the fact.

This project shows that starting with the people who most need our consideration and designing outward produces a platform that works better for everyone. Grounding that process in relational design, trauma-informed practice, and genuine community co-design with people with lived experience produces something more durable still: a platform people trust, and capabilities that extend well beyond your product.