Healthy Dying for People with Disability
The Challenge
Talking about death and dying can be difficult for anyone. For people with intellectual disability (ID), these conversations can be even more challenging when information is complex, inaccessible or doesn’t reflect how they understand and engage with it.
Li-Ve Tasmania’s Healthy Dying for People with Disability (HD4PWD) project aimed to strengthen communication and collaboration across the disability, health and palliative-care sectors, improving end-of-life experiences for people with ID.
We were engaged to develop a distinctive identity and communication approach that made a difficult subject more approachable, while delivering education and practical resources for diverse audiences.
Rather than designing for people with ID, we designed with them.
The Approach
Working with Speak Out Advocacy Tas, we undertook a co-design process with people with ID to explore the language, imagery, colours and communication methods that resonated with them.
Discussions explored disability, being human, living, dying, caring and home life, alongside responses to brand designs, symbols, photography, illustration and campaign styles.
The conversations challenged conventional assumptions. Participants described disability as part of community diversity, while being human was associated with freedom, equal rights, friendship and fairness. Home was described as “my own bubble” – a place of safety, pride and independence.
A key insight was the tension between the seriousness of dying and participants’ preference for communications that felt bright, positive and caring. This shifted the focus from making death feel sombre to communicating living well, having choice and being heard – including at the end of life.
The Creative Solution
These insights shaped the HD4PWD identity, using heart-shaped devices and warm colours to connect with the Li-Ve Tas parent brand while creating a distinctive identity for the initiative.
Institutional health and end-of-life language was replaced with familiar, accessible language that could work across digital, print and physical environments.
The identity was then translated into a suite of communication and education resources for people with disability, families and carers, support workers and health professionals.
The project included:
- Facilitated focus groups and co-design sessions
- Brand identity and design toolkit
- Social media education campaign
- Awareness and resources poster series
The Result
HD4PWD created a recognisable, accessible communication platform around a difficult subject.
It gave individuals, families, carers, support workers and health professionals clearer tools to support conversations about care, wishes and wellbeing.
Most importantly, people with lived experience directly influenced the project – demonstrating the value of involving the people a project is designed to support from the very beginning.
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