TOM: Melbourne + Untapped

Design Factory Melbourne

Inclusive Banking and Financial Independence.

As part of TOM@University program in partnership with Tikkun Olam Makers (TOM), Occupational Therapy (OT) and Design students created design solutions for people living with disabilities to make future work more inclusive and accessible.

In this challenge, the student team collaborated with the Untapped Group, leaders amongst neurodiversity research and promotion, to improve accessibility of banking services for neurodiverse people. The team focused on Autism Spectrum Disorder, a population with sensory processing differences and who experience challenges with communication, social interactions and repetitive behaviours. They sought to consider how we might ease the process of managing finances for young people with ASD to gain independence as an adult. Key themes from research included the need to improve financial literacy and online banking interfaces, which led to inform and frame their design solution, Money&Me.

Money&Me is a digital banking app, designed for neurodiverse young adults, which takes fundamental financial literacy learning modules and incorporates them into personal banking. The solution not only provides accessibility to banking services for neurodiverse people but provides a universal design solution for all to engage in an inclusive platform to improve their financial literacy, as well as secure their long term financial security and wellbeing.

Team: Courtney Forbes (Occupational Therapy), Jaiden Gusti (Design), Claire Ioannidis (Occupational Therapy) & Celestine Le Blanc (Occupational Therapy).

Money&Me – an inclusive banking experience for neurodiverse people

Money&Me – sign-up process

Money&Me – daily spend dashboard

Money&Me – learning modules

Money&Me – goal setting

Acknowledgement of Country

The School of Design and Architecture respectfully acknowledges the Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners and knowledge-keepers of the lands, waters and sky that surround us, where we work, learn, create, communicate and make place. We recognise that sovereignty has never been ceded and this always was and will always be Wurundjeri Country. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who continue to make a better world through design.

We extend our acknowledgement to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, students, alumni, real-life clients, and knowledge keepers, who have contributed to our own education diversity and growth. We will continue to ensure that staff and students respectfully honour ancestral connection to Country and Place in everything that they do.

We are dedicated to the notion of design to make a better world and we acknowledge that making tools, shaping place, sharing stories, making meaning, wayfinding and collaborating have long been and continue to be both central and integral to First Peoples' cultures. We recognize that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ cultural contributions have continued relevance to design practice and commit to: reconciling ancestries of design and contemporary practice as well as pursuing culturally and professionally appropriate ways to engage with a diverse population of colleagues, industries and clients. In a time of treaty-making and voice we understand that there are overlaps between caring for Country and the sustainable production of goods, services, experiences, products and buildings.

Guided by the principles of respect, reconciliation, and reciprocity we undertake to indigenising and decolonising design practice by dismantling colonial structures and challenging biases that have marginalised Indigenous voices and design.

As students of SoDA you will be given opportunities to both engage with and educate yourself in Indigenous creative practices and cultural protocols through a lens of inclusivity, diversity, respect, mutual understanding, inter-cultural dialogue in all aspects of design practice. Indigenous people have been telling stories, making tools, and connecting to Country through visual media, placemaking and place marking for more than 60,000 years and these practices are part of an ongoing, evolving and live tradition.