Who is Liliane?

Liliane is a designer based in Betim MG, Brazil, with multiple experiences to share! As the eldest daughter of four brothers, she fell in love with Design after experiencing a medical mistake that left her quadriplegic.

Her choice to pursue a professional career in Design was due to the ease of dealing with people and how she interacts with the physical and digital environment daily.

Assistive technology resources allow her to use the computer and do her work, which makes her realize numerous possibilities for people with disabilities to achieve personal independence and professional training using technology.

Also, Liliane believes that her experiences with inaccessibility are opportunities to prove that Design combined with accessibility means tools that generate innovation, whether it's in the usability of products or breadth of service delivery.

Liliane, who is a founding member of Redesign for All, a company that focuses on having accessibility as an innovation agent for products and services.

The story

Hi, my name is Vitor Guerra, and I met Liliane Claudia at the end of last year when I created a project where I invited Brazilian designers to expose their vision on Design in 2020. Liliane contacted me and asked if she could write an article to tell her story as a quadriplegic designer. It was very inspirational and transformative.

Since then, we became friends, and one day she told me that she was having some issues using Adobe XD. She controls her computer using an adapted trackball-mouse controlled solely by her chin.

I introduced her to Demian Borba, Product Manager for Adobe XD, and he ended up coming up with the idea of a plugin to try to help with her issues. He also invited Fabricio Farias, the developer behind all the plugin code, and Larz Hsu, a designer on Adobe XD, to help us with some design reviews.

As a group, we virtually got together and started to design a solution using an XD Cloud doc. In just two days, we had the first working prototype. And after multiple iterations, especially with feedback coming from Liliane, we are proud to share that the plugin is ready!

It was an incredible experience for me and certainly for everyone involved, especially since Liliane was not just a persona in the project, but an active designer, and a passionate user who worked closely with all of us.