Taryn D'Souza

Taryn D'Souza Principal UX & Service Design Consultant

Designing for Every Australian: Trauma-Informed and Emotionally Accessible Digital Experiences

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Designing for Every Australian: Trauma-Informed and Emotionally Accessible Digital Experiences

Designing for Every Australian: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Digital Experiences

Session Overview

Australia ranks among the highest in youth bullying within OECD nations, profoundly affecting mental health, particularly in rural and remote communities. This session explores how trauma-informed design can bridge the gap between standard accessibility guidelines and the complex realities faced by Australians dealing with bullying, addiction, and mental health challenges.

What You’ll Learn

Drawing from real-world work with a leading Australian charity focused on youth mental health and anti-bullying, and remote user research conducted across communities in Western Australia and Queensland, this session demonstrates how embedding empathy, trauma awareness, and cognitive accessibility into digital experiences can lead to transformative outcomes for vulnerable users.

You’ll gain:

- Frameworks for translating trauma awareness into actionable design decisions

Techniques for building cognitively accessible interfaces that reduce overwhelm

Strategies for mobile-first, offline-capable design in low-connectivity environments

Methods for safeguarding your team’s emotional wellbeing when working with sensitive topics

Why Attend

Traditional accessibility standards like WCAG don’t address how trauma impacts the way people absorb, process, and respond to information. When triggered, users may struggle to concentrate, make decisions, or engage meaningfully. This session moves beyond compliance to explore how we can design truly inclusive, supportive, and emotionally aware experiences for communities that need it most.

Who Should Attend

UX designers and researchers working with vulnerable or underserved populations

Product managers building digital services for rural and regional communities

Design leaders seeking to embed trauma-informed principles into their practice

Anyone interested in the intersection of mental health, accessibility, and digital experience

Taryn D'Souza

Taryn is a User Experience and Service Design consultant who partners with multiple organisations, including charities focused on social impact. Among her diverse portfolio is significant work designing inclusive, trauma-informed digital experiences. Through collaborations with Australian foundations, Taryn has helped translate real stories of lived experience into impactful, human-centered solutions for people affected by bullying, addiction, and mental health challenges. Her remote user research has reached communities across Western Australia and Queensland, bringing unique insights into the digital needs of isolated communities that inform her broader approach to inclusive design.

Code of Conduct

For over a decade, we've worked hard to create inclusive, fun, inspring and safe events for the Web Industry.

As part of our commitment to these values, we've adopted a code of conduct for all involved: ourselves, our speakers, our partners and our audience.

If you have any concern or feedback, please don't hesitate to contact us.