Designing for Strengths: Opportunities to Support Neurodiversity in the Workplace

Supported employment programs have demonstrated the ability to enhance employment outcomes for neurodivergent individuals by offering personalized job coaching that aligns with the strengths of each individual. While various technological interventions have been designed to support these programs, technologies that hyperfocus on users’ assumed challenges through deficit-based design have been criticized due to their potential to undermine the agency of neurodivergent individuals. Therefore, we use strengths-based co-design to explore the opportunities for a technology that supports neurodivergent employees using their strengths. The co-design activities uncovered our participants’ current strategies to address workplace challenges, the strengths they employ, and the technology designs that our participants developed to operationalize those strengths in a supportive technology. We find that incorporating strengths-based strategies for emotional regulation, interpersonal problem solving, and learning job-related skills can provide a supportive technology experience that bolsters neurodiverse employees’ agency and independence in the workplace. In response, we suggest design implications for using neurodiverse strengths as design requirements and how to design for independence in workplace.


INTRODUCTION
Successful employment is a key component in overall well-being and satisfaction of life for neurodivergent individuals due to its ability to increase self-worth through fnancial independence and increased social networks [40], and increased autonomy and selfdetermination [11,33]. 1 To help support the transition process from grade school to higher education and employment, many universities have implemented Inclusive Post-Secondary Education (IPSE) programs for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).The goal of these programs is to increase selfesteem and self-worth through providing opportunities to engage in life social skills and facilitating participation in valued social roles like being a college student.Further, because successful employment is typically the goal of post-secondary education, many IPSE programs employ the use of Supported Employment methods to support workplace skill learning and placement [41,42].
Supported employment (SE) is a structured employment process outlined by the US government intended to reduce barriers for neurodivergent job seekers and employees in obtaining and maintaining employment through supporting their "strengths, resources, priorities, concerns, abilities, capabilities, interests, and informed choice [54]".However, although many companies and organizations are committed to inclusion and success of ND employees, overall employment rates remain low due to a lack of resources, insufcient training of employment specialists and employer knowledge of neurodiversity, and inefective technological interventions [61,70].
Recently, many technological interventions have been explored for the purpose of supporting workplace skills [3,4,43,51,68] and employment success of ND employees [37,38,44].Supported employment programs that utilized technologies such as iPod touches, PDAs, and video-modeling successfully assisted in participants' executive functioning and work-related skills [70].However, although these technologies have shown short-term gains, they typically mimic psychological and behavioral interventions developed for this population and tend focus on addressing impairments within the individual [70], such as social skills [57], and aim to teach a limited range of skills from a neurotypical perspective [47].This type of defcit-focused intervention follows the medical model of disability, which implies that the ND individual has a "disorder," and therefore needs to be "fxed [26]".This leads to technologies that focus on assumed problems within the individual because their perspectives and experiences are not included in the design process [49].A key component of the neurodiversity movement is to support the individual's ability to control their own lives and enact change, thus increasing personal autonomy.However, these technologies can actually undermine these concepts by assuming the goals and needs of neurodiverse individuals [56].
It is for the above-mentioned shortcomings in technologies designed to support the ND population that we explore the use of strengths-based co-design to provide workplace support technologies for ND employees.In clinical settings, the strength-based approach to behavioral interventions is defned as "an approach to people that is primarily dependent upon positive attitudes about people's dignity, capacities, rights, uniqueness, and commonalities [60], " and was developed specifcally to address shortcomings in the medical model [25].The focus of this approach is on what the individual can utilize within themselves, such as skills, capacities, and resources, to achieve a goal and overcome challenges [16,67].One of the primary benefts of this method is that it gives the individual confdence in their own competence and ability to enact change, thus supporting their agency [66].Therefore, this paper examines the opportunities and challenges of a strengths-based codesign methodology as an alternative to defcit-based technological interventions for ND employees.
By focusing the co-design activities on the strengths and values of the individuals, we seek to understand how technology can provide workplace support through operationalizing each individual's strengths, as opposed to providing solutions to their real or perceived problems.Specifcally, we adopt the approach of previous research that analyzes an individual's problem-solving strategies in order to understand their capacities [78,88], and expand the definition of "capacities" to include an individual's strengths.Through investigation of the below research questions, we contribute to current discussions within HCI that aim to shift from a solely needs-or defcit-based technology design to one that recognizes, harnesses, and supports the resources, strengths, and capabilities within a community [52,63,81,88].Specifcally, we propose technological design recommendations that align with in-person job coaching techniques intended to operationalize inherent strengths within an individual and provide personalized workplace support that facilitates agency and autonomy.
• What are the strategies that our neurodiverse study participants currently use to address workplace situations and tasks?What strengths can be extracted from these strategies?• What design opportunities exist for a technology to support these strengths in workplace settings?

BACKGROUND
Supported employment interventions have been proven to be efective at supporting and improving work experiences for neurodiverse employees.A 2016 study of the efcacy of SE programs found that properly tailored services can assist ND employees in securing and maintaining competitive employment [85].In this section, we discuss the human capital required for successful supported employment programs, recent advances in technological supports, and perspectives on design that could better support the ND workforce.

Support for Neurodiversity in the Workplace
Inclusive initiatives like IPSE programs seek to support ND individuals by providing pathways for true participation in valued social roles, such as being a college student or employee, thus increasing their quality of life [42,82].Because there is a clear connection between a college education and higher rates of employment and pay for both neurotypical and neurodivergent individuals, it has been suggested that efective IPSE programs should incorporate an employment support component [42].
Many SE programs aid ND individuals' employment experience with the utilization of job coaches.Job coaches are employment specialists who uncover individuals' capabilities, interests, and strengths for job placements [61], and provide onsite-workplace assistance by adjusting the work tasks according to their strengths [6].Further, job coaches help ND employees develop compensatory support strategies that act as memory aids and are designed to facilitate learning or performance of a particular work task or routine [85].To work efectively, job coaches must be very familiar with the individual's capabilities and performance, and must know the job duties well enough to perform detailed task analysis [61,69,85].
Human job coach support integrated into an SE program is an effective way to support ND employees and can increase employment outcomes [27,70].However, it is very labor-intensive and costly, as it can take between 100 and 140 hours of in-person workplace support from a job coach for an ND employee to achieve stabilized employment [85,86].This signifcant up-front efort usually leads to insufcient resources to adequately ofer individualized support due to training inadequacies, cost, and availability [30,80].To alleviate the high human capital in the process, some supportive employment programs have recently shifted to include the exploration of technological interventions that can supplement the job coaching process.However, while the human job coaching techniques described above are efective, the emphasis on the individual's strengths, capabilities, and interests is sometimes lost when translated to technology.In the following sections, we present how these interventions can both support and hinder ND employees, and present a case for a strengths-based technology design approach that can ameliorate challenges caused by them.

Technology Interventions for Neurodivergence
Because most of our daily environments such as educational settings, workspaces, and workplace technologies, such as video conferencing platforms, are often designed for neurotypical people, ND people face many barriers as their cognitive diferences are not supported or considered in these settings [22,45].Researchers have investigated ways to reduce these barriers in various contexts using technological interventions [39].A defcit-based design addresses this issue by viewing the diferences in ND individuals as defcits that do not meet the norms of neurotypicals [70,87].Thus, it seeks to reduce assumed defciencies by either enhancing skills or correcting them [75,77].For example, in a 2019 review of technology developed for autistic children, researchers found that the majority of technologies were focused on building social skills, either directly or indirectly (such as within a game) [75].Similarly, a 2022 study of HCI research for individuals with ADHD found that the majority of technology for this group focuses on training users' focus, concentration and attention skills [77].Both studies found the goals of the interventions largely focus on leading ND individuals to learn and acquire skills that are accepted as neurotypical norms, such as eye contact or maintaining attention, even if the individual experiences discomfort with the skill.In the case of HCI research developing games for neurodivergence, players are frequently bound by what the game "allows them to do," -usually a neurotypical skill that the game is trying to teach -as opposed to what they "get to do"execute the game tasks to their understanding and abilities [76].Some defcit-based technological interventions have demonstrated improvements in the skills of ND individuals and/or a reduction in defcits as defned from the NT perspectives [24,29,79].However, this approach has negative impacts on accepting diversity because these technologies categorize neurodivergence as a list of disabilities that need to be compensated for, as opposed to cognitive diferences and preferences that should be embraced.Furthermore, defcit-based interventions can reduce an individual's ability to act based on their own capabilities because the systems force them into neurotypical social models and behaviors that do not align with their experiences.Therefore, defcit-based interventions can reduce agency, which we defne as a sense of personal empowerment involving both knowing and having what it takes to achieve goals and enact change in one's life [66,72].To address this, our work proposes to reduce barriers to successful employment by embracing diversity within individuals, and using a strengths-based perspective to facilitate their agency.Below, we provide more examples of past studies showing how diferent employment support technologies can impact diversity and agency.

Employment Technologies.
Many supported employment technologies focus on pre-placement job skills such as interviewing [3,4,73,74,89].Virtual reality (VR) is a common mode of training for workplace skills, and has been utilized in many recent studies as well.For example, Smith et al found simulated job interviews in VR can signifcantly improve job interview skills and interview self-confdence in autistic people [50,73,74].These systems seek to correct or teach specifc skills such as eye contact or appropriate responses with the ultimate goal of removing barriers to employment and addressing gaps in transition support for people with cognitive diversity.However, the systems could result in reduced user agency by focusing explicitly on a perceived defciency in behavior based on neurotypical norms.Further, defcit-centric approaches to technological interventions intensify anxiety among ND job seekers [35], as their focus shifts towards their shortcomings rather than the development and application of their unique strengths and capabilities within workplace contexts.
Other researchers have investigated the use of personal devices for support in the workplace setting [36,37,44].Gentry et al. found that introducing an assistive technology (AT) with task reminders, task lists, video-based task-sequencing prompts, behavioral selfmanagement adaptations, way-fnding tools, and communication with the job coach via WiFi can signifcantly reduce the need for in-person coaching support for ND employees without reducing functional performance.The intervention group in this study required 1.56 times less job coaching hours than the control group at twelve weeks.Similarly, Hill et al found that comparable AT such as iPads, iPods, and iPhones with applications specifcally developed to support a structured work day (medication management, time management, emotional coping strategies) are capable of increasing independence, job placement, and job retention for ND individuals [44].
While the AT mentioned above ofers tools for ND employees to self-manage their needs instead of teaching neurotypical skills, they still fail to provide personalized strategies for fnding jobs, completing work tasks, and addressing workplace challenges that empower ND individuals to explore, cultivate, and apply their unique strengths.A 2018 review of 134 studies investigating employment interventions for people with autism found that none of the studies used a strengths-based approach to intervention [70], however, ND employees want their strengths and abilities highlighted in workplace settings [59].Further, a 2022 literature review found that there is a signifcant gap in research that investigates the strengths of ND individuals [23].
Therefore, our research seeks to address the gap created between the personalized, strengths-based support of in-person job coaching and the generalized, defcit-based approaches of technological aides.In the following section, we describe the use of strengths in design, and how they can be leveraged to create personalized support technologies for neurodivergent employees that embrace their diversity and support their agency.

A Case for Strengths-Based Technology
Many HCI and community design researchers have argued that defcits-based and needs-solving technologies cause internalization of perceived dependencies and a decrease in user agency to bring about change in their lives [52].Technological agency refers to the user's ability to control the correct aspects of the technology at the right time in order to accomplish the right goal [31].Therefore, if the technology is developed without the correct goals in mind-because user perspective is not included in the design process and their problems are assumed based on their diagnosis-user agency is diminished in both operating the technology and achieving their goals.Because autonomy has been directly correlated to self-determination, fourishing, and independence of ND individuals [64], it is a crucial aspect of design to consider when developing workplace-supportive technologies.
Value-sensitive design is a concept within the HCI community that posits the prioritization of human values into the entire technology design process [32,55].In this context, "values" are defned as what a person considers important in life, and some researchers have claimed that a truly human-centered design process needs to pay explicit attention to the values of the stakeholders being designed for [21].Recent critiques of this method have called for values to be determined within the context of the users and their use-cases, and that participatory design methods, such as co-design, story-telling, and drama-based activities, be employed to strengthen the voices of the participants [8,14,55].Similarly, researchers in capacities-based design have explored more narrative-based, structured co-design methods in order to surface the strategies of action used by marginalized populations to solve problems.Wong-Villacres et al found that when these strategies are analyzed, they provide an exemplary lens through which to understand the capacities that the participants utilize in their everyday lives, and therefore provide rich design insights for supportive technologies.Further, considering capacities as design requirements broadens the scope of potential avenues for support and empowerment within the technology [88].By investigating strategies, we are able to understand which capacities can be supported to help the user achieve a particular goal.
In line with this reasoning, our study seeks to surface what strategies our participants use in the workplace in order to surface their strengths.HCI researchers have explored assets-based design, emphasizing the signifcance of leveraging people's current capacities and assets rather than focusing on defcits [88].The terms capacities and assets are commonly used interchangeably and refer to the abilities that an individual already possesses to solve problems, and can include material resources, knowledge, physical capabilities, and skills [52,88].In this work, we expand on these frameworks by specifcally highlighting an individual's strengths as a characteristic of their problem-solving capacities due to their distinct association with positive viewpoints.We adopt our defnition of strengths from positive psychology: "a natural capacity for behaving, thinking or feeling in a way that allows optimal functioning and performance in the pursuit of valued outcomes [58]." Compared to the neutrality of capacities and assets, strengths are unique in that they focus on the self, and both positive psychology and HCI literature suggest that the use of strengths can result in heightened positive attitudes, belief in one's abilities, and self-efcacy and advocacy amongst individuals with autism [20].Further, HCI researchers have called for more research to investigate strengths-based technology as a mechanism for supporting agency [77].Therefore, we adopt positive psychology perspectives on strengths to investigate the strengths of our ND study participants through analysis of their workplace strategies.With this information, we suggest design implications for a workplace supportive technology for ND employees that seeks to operationalize their inherent strengths, thus fostering their agency through increased positive attitudes and self-efcacy.We chose to pursue a job coach context for the technology due to the participants' familiarity with job coaches (as part of the IPSE program in which they were enrolled), the prevalence of SE programs that utilize job coaches, and the efective nature of job coaching in ND employment outcomes.

METHODOLOGY: STRENGTH-BASED STUDY DESIGN
The ultimate goal of this study is to surface design opportunities for a job coach technology that seeks to support ND individuals through the operationalization of their strengths to address workplace tasks and challenges.The specifc co-design activities within our methodology were conceptualized based on suggestions from Wong-Villacres' study of capacity-based design that seeks to leverage capacities-the abilities people perform to solve everyday problems-for technology [88].In the following methodology, we defne strategies as the approaches that our participants use to address workplace challenges.Through the discussion of these strategies, we extract the strengths that underlay them and associate them with the VIA Institute of Character classifcation of strengths [62].
Our strengths-based co-design methodology culminated in participants creating prototypes that transformed their familiar strategies into features of support from their ideal job coach technology.This series of activities, described in detail below, follows closely with the value-sensitive design's methodological framework of conceptual, empirical, and technical investigations of strengthsbased strategies for integration into technology [31,32].In order to draw out the successful strategies that our participants utilize in the workplace, all activities were driven using Appreciative Inquiry, a narrative interview technique that seeks to draw peak experiences and success from the past, and shift the focus from a negative interpretation of self to one that recognizes one's capacity for change [18,28].

Participants
This study was conducted in an educational setting at a state university in the southern United States.Our participants were enrolled in an on-campus IPSE program.Following the IPSE program requirement, all of our participants have a medical diagnosis of intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) 2 .Additionally, all participants have a 3rd grade reading level, know basic mathematics, can use a tablet or computer, have no signifcant behavioral/emotional challenges, and are able to live and work independently for long periods of time.
Fourteen participants enrolled in the class, and thirteen consented to participate the study.All consenting participants had their data collected and reported in this paper, however, the nonconsenting participant's data was omitted from analysis.A breakdown of participant demographics is included in Table1.Our sample was unifed by all participants having a shared diagnosis of IDD.Research activities were conducted in a class setting that lasted 90 minutes and met twice weekly.Our co-design study encompassed ten classes in total over a period of seven weeks.We received IRB approval to complete this study within the class.

Strengths-focused Co-Design Workshops
A key aspect of this study is its use of strengths as the focal point for co-designing a supportive technology.Over the course of the ten classes, participants completed activities whose purpose was two-fold: to engage them in learning the human-centered design process and produce viable design artifacts, and to collect data from a co-design perspective from the participants.Each activity was designed to engage the participants in a way that allowed them to express their personal preferences while actively engaging in the design process.Further, the classroom setting and multiple meeting  structure of the workshops allowed for rich data collection from each participant, thus providing depth of information on each topic from multiple perspectives.
3.2.1 Tree Of Life.The Tree of Life (ToL) collage activity was designed to allow participants to understand their self-reported strengths and values, and to synthesize these fndings into artifacts that can be used as a reference in the rest of the co-design methodology.This activity lasted two study session periods.Participants were given a template of a tree on which each section-roots, trunk, and branches-represented a diferent part of their lives.They were asked to paste, draw, or write representations of themselves based on prompts for each section.Fig. 1 shows the prompts included in the template.The purpose of including roots is to understand one's background and to engage the participants in thinking about how their background has shaped their personalities and characteristics.The trunk represented skills and strengths, and this portion of the tree was intended to initiate language and considerations of one's strengths.The branches represented dreams, whose purpose was to encourage participants think of the future they envision for themselves and their motivations.

Virtual Job Coach
Inquiries.This activity was intended to surface the types of questions that our participants wanted to ask a virtual job coach, and lasted two research sessions.Researchers demonstrated a prototype of a ChatGPT-powered job coach chatbot (Fig. 2).The experience included an animated job coach avatar that the participants could verbally ask questions to and converse with, and the interface simulated a virtual call.This simulation was deployed on the researchers' laptops, which participants could access.The virtual job coach employed ChatGPT 3's davinci model for text generation.For example, the initial interaction began with the greeting, "Hi, I am your job coach.How are you doing today?"This opening statement, combined with the participant's response, served as a prompt for ChatGPT to formulate subsequent dialogues.Each participant's reply generated a comprehensive prompt for ChatGPT, which, in turn, infuenced the virtual job coach's spoken responses.
After a researcher demonstrated the virtual job coach's abilities with an example conversation, participants were allowed to interact with the technology and ask questions that they might have for a virtual job coach.These interactions were video-recorded.

User Stories.
A crucial part of this co-design method is being able to efectively translate strengths and values into design requirements that will help our participants achieve their goals.From the ToL activity, we had data on our participant's strengths and values, and the virtual job coach inquiry activity surfaced in what workplace situations they wanted support from a job coach.To create our target design requirements of strengths-based strategies to support our participants in the workplace, we engaged them in creating user stories that reconciled our current data.User stories are a user research method that uses a narrative to represent a user group's goal and is designed to facilitate discussion of system requirements that will help them achieve that goal [19].Our strength-contextualized user stories took the form of: "As <a user with certain strengths>, I want to <task/goal>."Using the user stories, discussions could focus on how a system can help that particular user achieve their goals.This activity lasted three study sessions.
Tasks were derived from questions that participants asked during the virtual job coach inquiry activity.For example, P6 asked the virtual job coach "My new co-workers have not been very nice to me... I'm not sure what to do right now?" which resulted in a user story template that included "As P6, I want to know what to do when I am not getting along with my coworkers." A list of the participant's strengths from the ToL activity was used to motivate the discussion.For example, if one person's strength was empathy, the group leader would prompt the discussion with "How could the system use your strength in empathy to help you achieve this task?"Each researcher recorded the key points, features, and strategies that participants discussed for each task.This activity revealed strategies that our participants fnd useful in diferent situations and would want available to them via a virtual job coach system.Further, the strengths-focused nature of the discussions allowed participants to consider what strategies would be best suited to their individual strengths.

Prototype Design and
Reflections.This activity was designed to guide participants in combining all the previously made artifacts and user research into tangible paper prototypes.In particular, prototyping was intended for participants to design features that would support the strengths-focused strategies from the user stories.We then evaluated these prototypes for rationale and motivation in the design choices.In total, this activity lasted three study sessions.
Design: To create paper prototypes, researchers provided each participant with a packet that included their personal aggregated data from across all the previous design activities (ToL, Questions asked to the virtual job coach, User Stories), and a list of questions that guided the student to consider how all of these things might come together in a usable technology.In the packet, participants were given the questions they asked to the virtual job coach, and further prompted: How will the job coach help you do this using your strengths?, What are one or more strategies that the job coach can ofer you?, What does your job coach look and sound like?
Participants were provided with paper, pens, and collage materials to create their designs based on the answers to the packet questions, or other inspirations.Collage materials included clip art of technology such as a blank computer screen, phone screen, VR headset, and apple watch, as well as diferent options for avatars (people, robots, characters), and features (chat interfaces, buttons, lists).
Refection: The fnal activity of our strengths-based co-design method included interviews of each participant about their prototype and rationale for design choices.Participants were asked to explain in detail how they envisioned using the features in their prototypes, and why that feature or strategy was something they thought was useful.Researchers leading these interviews recorded all interviews.

DATA ANALYSIS
Video recordings of each activity were captured and transcribed for data analysis.Data from each activity in the co-design methodology required analysis for use in the following activity.For our analysis, we employed open coding and thematic analysis [15] on the transcripts of the recording data.Initially, the frst author conducted open coding and thematic analysis to generate codes and identify relevant themes.Then, another researcher engaged in an iterative review and revision process with the frst author, continuing until a consensus was achieved.Below, we report the analysis process of each activity in more detail.

Strengths and Values
The Tree of Life activity had explicit questions that participants answered about their background, strengths, values, and motivations, which can be found on (Fig. 1).At the end of the activity, participants also explained about the images and answers they drew and wrote for each question.Upon reviewing the participants' activity outcomes and their explanations, were able to create clear lists of each participant's self-reported strengths and values, which are discussed in Section 5.1.1.
In order to understand participants' motivations for employment, researchers used open coding and thematic analysis [15] on the transcripts of the particpants explaining their ToL artifacts.Specifcally, we sought to understand the why behind each participant's dream job by analyzing the participant's language describing the outcome of their dream job.For example, a participant stated that she wanted to be a baker because "...I want people to try the treats I make (P11)."Researchers found 4 themes resulting from this thematic analysis: I want to do what I love, I want to share something that I make, I like to help people, and I like technology.These themes are further discussed in Findings section 5.1.2

Job Coach Inquiries
The virtual job coach inquiry activity informed the diferent types of questions that our participants might ask a virtual job coach technology.Researchers again conducted thematic analysis on transcripts from each participants' interaction with the job coach [15].Specifcally, we analyzed the questions for the type of information that the participants were asking for, and what outcome they wanted to achieve.We found three distinct themes of questions asked to the virtual job coach: 1) interpersonal customer or coworkers interactions, 2) how to do workplace tasks, and 3) workplace information inquiries.

Design Requirements & Prototypes
As mentioned in the Methodology section, we combined our data on participant strengths and values and their job coach inquiries to create user stories that allowed participants to think of strengthsbased strategies to address workplace challenges, and to create paper prototypes that employ those strategies.We video-recorded each participant's explanation about each feature in their prototype.Using these recordings and their transcripts, we open-coded the strategies of participants to extract the strengths that underlie them.We examined participants' strategies through the framework of the VIA Institute's list of 24 Character Strengths [62].The VIA Institute defnes character strengths as personality traits that 1) refect one's personality, 2) produce positive outcomes for oneself and others, and 3) contribute to the collective good.These classifcations serve as a conceptual framework for the purpose of a common language when discussing strengths and the "goodness" in human beings [62].For our purposes, we categorize strength themes observed during our study into this conceptual framework by associating them with the most relevant VIA strength.Findings Section 5.2 describes the strengths that our participants use in the workplace, and 5.3 presents how participants want to be supported in executing their agency and independence in the workplace.
We acknowledge that this is a descriptive, not prescriptive, application of strengths.Our purpose is not to assign a single strength or strategy to an individual and create technology around it.Rather, our purpose is to understand what strengths underlay our participants' strategies of action to address workplace situations, and what opportunities there are to support those strengths through a job coach technology intervention.

FINDINGS
In this section, we present our participants' core values, workplace strategies, and strengths that they turn to when faced with challenging or nuanced work experiences.We frst present fndings on core values and strengths that our participants reported in the ToL activity.Then, we present a strengths-based analysis of strategies that our participants use in the workplace and ultimately designed into their fnal prototypes.

Core values as strengths
The Tree of Life activity guided our understanding of our participants' core values and motivators.This activity was designed to let the participants creatively imagine and express their ideas through a series of questions and topics.Results demonstrated how the core values of our participants impacted their perspectives and provided a structured artifact from which they could draw conclusions about how their strengths and values infuence their lives.For example, in a refection on the activity, P6 said that the ToL activity helped him see how his values impact his goals for the future.

Relationships and Community.
When the backgrounds of the participants were discussed during the Tree of Life activity, all thirteen participants reported that their family and friends were a key source of support and encouragement in their lives.P7 said that her family "makes [her] happy and is there for [her] no matter what." Similarly, other participants indicated that their families are a signifcant source of support because they will be by their side during hard times and when problems arise (P2, P4, P12), take care of them if anything happens to them (P4, P11), and care for and love them (P2, P4).Additionally, relationships with friends were commonly brought up as sources of support for participants.P1 said that her friends are important because "they appreciate [her]".The act of valuing relationships indicates love as a core strength and powerful motivator [62].
When discussing friendships and social relationships, the most common characteristic that participants reported as making them good friends was kindness (P1, P4, P5, P7, P11), a strength that is characterized as helping others [62].Further, two participants (P6, P11) claimed humor was a strength that supported their friendships.Humor is a strength that is distinguished by one's ability to impact others in a positive way [62].Love, kindness, and humor are all strengths that involve other people in order to exhibit them, making them highly relational.These fndings support previous research regarding the impact of community, family, and friends on ND individuals and their employment outcomes [36,53].For example, ND individuals experience better employment satisfaction when they reside with their families [36], and structured programs that involve parents have been shown to improve the social experiences of autistic individuals [53].These fndings expand the scope of this concept to include love, kindness, humor, and other relationshipdriven values as strengths that should be considered in workplace technological interventions.

Professional Values.
The second half of the ToL activity was designed to elicit discussion on participants' strengths and values specifcally in a workplace context.Being a "hard worker" was the most commonly reported characteristic of being a good employee (P2, P7, P8).This can be understood as perseverance; a strength associated with persisting in a course of action despite obstacles [62].One participant's rationale for valuing his work ethic was that "hard workers get things done no matter what (P8)."Another participant said she was a good worker because she closely listened to her manager so that she could "do things right and be a better employee (P11)." These quotes indicate that our participants value their ability to meet their job requirements efectively and dependably.
Another common characteristic participants related to the workplace was teamwork (P4, P7, P12), with one participant claiming working with others is "better than doing it by yourself (P4)." Being professional during the teamwork was a characteristic that P12 found important, claiming that when you are faced with challenges at work, "you don't have to be rude." Teamwork is a strength characterized by the ability to be a loyal member of a group [62], and not being rude to others can be thought of as an act of kindness.As with previously discussed strengths of love and humor, and kindness, teamwork is highly relational and exhibited in contexts with other people.
In line with the fnding that our participants value their relationships with others highly, when we asked participants what their motivations are for their dream jobs, many of the answers indicated that they are motivated by interactions with others.For example, P11, whose dream job is to be a baker, wants to share her baked goods with others.P4 wants to be a Youtuber so that he can share videos and ideas that he enjoys with other people.P1 wants to help other people with disabilities by contributing to the design of physical spaces and technology.P2 wants to be a doctor or a vet so that she can help people and animals.Other participants chose dream jobs that related to their specifc interests, like P6 who loves football and wants to be a NFL equipment manager, and (P8, P12) who both work in IT because they enjoy working with technology and felt they had strength in the feld.In all examples, the participants were motivated by either their values-helping or sharing with others-or their personal interests.

Strength-based strategies for employment support
The fnal co-design activities (user stories and prototyping) were focused on surfacing strategies of action that our participants use in the workplace to address challenges.Through analysis of these strategies, and rationale from participants, we extract strengths from them as a topic of discussion and opportunity for a job coach technology to support.In this section, we report the strategies that participants often employ their strengths in three common challenging situations at work: emotional challenges, relational issues, and work task specifc struggles.

Mental and Emotional
Support in the Workplace.Many participants (P1, P2, P5, P6, P7) indicated that a system that can support their emotional state in the workplace would be a useful resource.Strengths that support emotional support strategies used by our participants include self-regulation and hope.
Self-Regulation: Self-regulation is a strength that allows one to control their emotions and remain disciplined [62], and we found that regulating emotions was frequently the frst strategy that participants turned to when discussing how to address stress at work.For example, P6 designed his prototype to support him when he is being asked to do a lot of tasks at work and feels overwhelmed.His job coach prototype included a feature to help him remain or regain calm through guided breathing exercises.During the evaluation, P6 stated that this is a strategy he frequently uses at work for self-regulation.He also included a wayfnding feature that led to the break room so he could remove himself from the stressful situation (Fig. 3).Gentry et al found that similar wayfnding and map features are efective at supporting ND employees in the workplace.P6's prototype suggests that this wayfnding feature can further support his self-regulation by reducing the cognitive load required to navigate to a break room or outside when emotional regulation should be his main focus.Once removed from the situation that is causing overwhelm, P6 utilized features in his prototype that use his strength in humor to help him re-gain a calm composure, suggesting that the job coach could prompt him to think of a funny story to help "relax [his] brain." Other participants designed both similar and diferent strategies that support self-regulation.Some strategies directly addressed the feelings of stress, such as job coach-led counting exercise, or a list of activities that could help manage stress such as taking a timed walk (P7).Other strategies allowed the participant to explore selfregulation options for themselves, such as resources for mental health support such as a list therapy options or a direct line to their current mental health counselor (P5).Interestingly, P7 included calling a parent as a strategy to help her re-regulate, which calls back to the love and relational strengths discussed in previous sections.Because our participants value their relationships with those they trust, this strength of love can be utilized to support their self-regulation in the workplace as well.
Hope: Beyond supporting self-regulation, participants discussed strategies that their job coaches could ofer to help maintain a positive mindset in the workplace.In an open discussion during the user stories activity, P2 discussed the ability of a job coach to help her when she and her co-workers are not getting along.P2 said she would want the system to encourage her to try to resolve the tension by reminding her that "if [an attempt to resolve the tension] doesn't work out, there are other friends you can make.But to remain professional with co-workers that you may not personally get along with (paraphrase, P2)." In the same discussion, P1 said that she "wants the system to encourage [her] to keep using [her] strength (paraphrase, P1)." Hope is a strength characterized by optimism about the future, belief in one's actions, and feeling confdent things will turn out well [62].Both of these strategies suggest that participants want to be supported in feeling hopeful about the challenges they are facing, and encouraged that they are capable of overcoming them.
Similarly, many participants invoked the importance of encouragement in their virtual job coach designs.For example, P1 designed her prototype to support her in completing a new work task, and a strategy she included was the job coach ofering praise because "the more reinforcement the better (P1)." P5 wanted her virtual job coach to encourage her with phrases such as "You're doing a really good job... Keep on doing it." We found that such reassuring language can be thought of as bolstering perseverance, hope, and the confdence of the individual.For the workplace context, it can help increase feelings of agency by reminding the individual that they have the strengths and skills to address workplace challenges.Further, studies on positive psychology have shown that by framing language in a positive perspective, individuals have more confdence in their competence and a more positive outlook on their capabilities to afect change in a situation [66].Therefore, our fndings suggest the concept that positive language used for encouragement would beneft a strengths-supportive job coach technology by keeping the employee's mental perspective positively framed.

Social interactions at work. Following emotional regulation, participants discussed how a virtual job coach could support them in approaching work-specifc social interactions.
Judgement, Critical Thinking, & Empathy Challenges between participants and their co-workers or workplace customers were a frequent topic of discussion.During the virtual job coach inquiry, P6 asked the virtual job coach "My new co-workers have not been very nice to me... I'm not sure what to do right now?" Regarding customers, P7 said "[when] I have customers complaining, [it stresses] [You] can be curious and try to come up with ideas to problem solve (P2)." Here, the strategy of asking questions about the co-worker's perspective aligns with judgment and critical thinking strengths as those indicate the ability to think through things and examine them from all sides [62].Participants specifcally mentioned strategies that a job coach system can ofer such as recommending possible questions to ask co-workers about the tension (P2), ways to facilitate friendships such as inquiring about common interests via text message conversations (P2), or ofering ice-breakers to open conversations (P1, P3).
Additionally, P7 said she would want a job coach to frst remind her "to keep a positive mindset and behavior towards the customer, " a strategy that calls back to previously discussed self-regulation methods.In order to resolve customer issues, similar to resolving tensions with co-workers, P5, P7, and P9 suggested efective strategies would be asking questions to learn more about the customer, and responding based on the customer's concerns.P5 wants her prototype to "help [her] see what [she] can do to de-escalate the problem with a customer" and included features such as a list of questions she can ask to get to the root of the customer's problem, and reminding her to consider the customer's perspective and respond with empathy.While many technological interventions for ND individuals focus on providing solutions to social shortcomings of the ND population through assessing eye contact during interviews [89], or emotional recognition [9], this fnding suggests that instead, our IDD participants want a supportive technology to ofer actionable ways for the individual to interact with the specifc situation and be encouraged to resolve it through more relational and empathetic strategies.

Work Tasks and Information.
The need for work-related information was a common workplace experience that our study participants designed their job coach prototypes to address.For example, P1, P2, P6, and P12 designed their job coach prototype to help them learn new work-related skills while in the workplace.
Perseverance: We found that when our participants needed information or to complete a new task, they wanted resources to learn the task themselves.Similar to fndings in Professional Values (5.1.2),we attribute this to the strength of perseverance, which is persisting in a course of action despite obstacles [62].The prototypes of all four participants included their most efective strategy to learn new skills--breaking down the new task into a list of steps.P1 stated that breaking things down into steps would help "so [she doesn't] get overwhelmed, " a strategy that also supports self-regulation, and she drew features to support this such as a visual list or checklist of actions she can take or next steps for her to follow.Further, all four prototypes included features that provide resources for learning the tasks such as videos and tutorials (Fig. 5).P8 stated he would like "links to watch videos to see what kind of steps you need to do ... [and it could] give you some examples ... to help you learn ... better." Similarly, P3, P4, and P10 designed their prototypes to assist them in accomplishing the specifc work tasks of building a playlist for a birthday party at a bowling alley, re-stocking shelves, and completing online documentation, respectively.Two of these designs included a list of steps as support for accomplishing the work task (Fig. 4).P6, P9, and P10 designed summary and read-aloud features of the steps and resources provided by the job coach (Fig. 5).P9 said the job coach would "share her screen with an article ... that would help us [by] reading it step by step.[...] because that could help us understand what are we supposed to do next, " indicating that the system can support them in accomplishing tasks correctly and helping them learn how to accomplish the task.P8 said a job coach technology providing resources can "help you learn [the skill] better" in order to be better at the job.These fndings indicate that the use of step-by-step instructions and resources for learning as strategies for workplace support aligns with the desire to be a good, reliable worker, the most commonly cited value in the workplace during the ToL activity.This step-by-step feature has been found as useful in other workplace support technologies that utilize video-and audio-based modalities [71].Video prompting allows the employee to independently navigate through the steps of the task, or repeat steps to successfully complete a job [10,48], while video modeling can help employees learn and maintain vocational skills, and even generalize those skills over diferent tasks [5,43,68,83].

Agency and Independence
Being able to complete workplace tasks independently and to the satisfaction of a supervisor is paramount for employment stabilization [85].In previous sections, we reported the strengths that participants want supported in order to address emotional, social, and informational workplace challenges on their own.Expanding on this, the concept of agency and independence frequently emerged across our participants' design activities.
P1 stated that when faced with an unknown task or nuanced situation at work, "...the frst thing you do is you take it on yourself, you try it...And then if you're still kind of stuck, or it's not making sense, you ask for help (P1)." Another participant felt especially strongly about not being micromanaged or watched over by her employer or in-person job coach, saying she doesn't like it when she feels like someone is "breathing down your neck (P5)." P3, who has worked at the bowling alley to put shoes away, designed the job coach prototype to support him in trying a new skill frst through prompting questions and guided lists, followed by encouragement to ask for help from co-workers or a supervisor if he needs further support.These fndings suggest our IDD participants strong preferences for technology designs that prioritize facilitating their agency and independence in completing work tasks and addressing workplace situations through guiding strategies, rather than telling them exactly what to do.
Agency in the work context can be thought of as being able to take action to produce change.Twelve out of thirteen prototypes were designed to ofer options or strategies to assist users in executing a work task themselves before asking for help from co-workers or supervisors.By designing prototype features that supported the participants' ability to take action themselves, instead of designing something to do the task for them, these fndings suggest that our participants want to execute their agency in the workplace.Below, Figure 5: Image of P10 prototype with resources for learning with read-aloud features we report three specifc strategies suggested by participants that can be used to support their agency and independence.

Motivating with Past
Success.An integral part of strengthsbased psychology is to surface strengths by analyzing successful strategies that the individual has used in the past [2].By doing so, individuals are able to make the connection between a past challenge and a current challenge, and are better able to understand their ability to address it.Similarly, we found that participants wanted their job coach systems to acknowledge their past success in a particular task through prompting questions and verbal afrmations of their past success.P4 designed his prototype to assist him with the specifc work task of re-stocking shelves, a task he has accomplished before at work.He wanted his job coach to encourage him by reminding him that he has completed this task before, and can use the same strategies to do it again."The job coach knows you're intelligent...So the job coach wants to remind you... look, do you remember the last time this worked and then... the job coach will give the same suggestion (P4)." This participant recognized his abilities and designed his prototype to remind him of his strengths and encourage repeated use of successful strategies.When discussing this prompting concept, P12 said that she liked being asked questions that make her refect on her own strengths and experiences, allowing her to come up with her own strategies to address the situation.

Decision
-making support by providing options.Many participants specifcally discussed and designed features that allowed them to employ their judgment and decide the best course of action for themselves.For example, P1, who designed her job coach prototype to support her in learning a new work skill, included a feature where the job coach would suggest diferent courses of action for her, and she could choose which one she wanted to use: "So he's giving you options, and it's utilizing your strength of being able to evaluate which options are best to move forward (P1, paraphrase)." Similarly, P2, who designed her prototype to help her stay focused when she is disengaged or bored at work, wanted her job coach to present two diferent strategies to help her re-engage.P2 said she wanted the opportunity to "pick which one would be best." During design discussions, P2 elaborated by sharing that she wants "suggestions based on strengths, but not to be told exactly what to do (paraphrase, P2)." Further, P5 designed her prototype to ofer her "tips that [she] can approve or not approve" when addressing difcult customer interactions.5.3.3Self-management features.Our participants' preferences for having self-management features in job coach technology such as scheduling, timekeeping, and reminders also represent the participant's desire to be able to operate independently by managing their own schedules, time commitments, and responsibilities.For example, P8 and P11 both included calendars in their prototypes with reminder alerts for school and work responsibilities.The usefulness and importance of these self-management features in workplace interventions have been also emphasized in previous research, where researchers found that these types of features can increase functional independence in autistic individuals [38].

DISCUSSION
Drawing from Wong-Villacres' concept of unpacking strategies of action to surface the capacities of a population or individual [88], we interpret our study participant's workplace strategies through the lens of strengths.Although not mutually exclusive to the perspectives of capacity-and assets-based design, in which capacities and assets are neutral resources available to the individual [52,88], strengths are explicitly utilized in positively psychology interventions to increase ones agency due to their ability to foster a positive attitude about ones ability to enact change in their own lives [60,66].In line with Feminist HCI and in contrast to interventions that undermine the agency of their neurodiverse users, strengths-based approaches seek to surface and operationalize the inherent uniqueness and abilities within each individual through personalized strategies that can be used to overcome problems [7,16,65,67].Further, because supported employment programs were developed specifcally for the purpose of increasing workplace outcomes supporting ND employees' strengths and preferences [13,54], we suggest that technologies developed to augment these programs should have the same focus.
Researchers in HCI have called for the need to commit to building upon existing strengths within a population, and resist the urge to force a technological solution to challenges they face [34].Therefore, the goal of this study is to surface design opportunities to support the strategies that IDD individuals use in the workplace when they are faced with challenging or nuanced work situations using their strengths.In this section, we present how the strengths of our IDD study participants can be translated into design considerations and requirements for a technology that supports their individual strengths, and further discuss the implications in the broader perspective of neurodiversity.Ultimately, we present a new perspective on design that can be used to support ND individuals through their inherent capacities and seeks to achieve workplace stabilization through strategies that consider and utilize their strengths to achieve independence in workplace settings.
We intend for the design implications put forth by this study to be considered within the larger scope of designing technologies for ND individuals that facilitate the user's agency and independence at workplaces.We acknowledge that the strengths-based features outlined in this study alone will not be able to fully support the diversity of the ND population.However, we posit that personalized, strengths-based strategies can be a valuable addition to the toolkit of the user and therefore should be integrated into such technologies.In supported employment settings, the purpose of the job coach is not to do the work for the individual, but to support them in developing strategies that will facilitate autonomy in a particular task, and ultimately in the workplace.Therefore, interventions seeking to align with this approach to support should be designed to allow the user to achieve autonomy in tasks by supporting their ability to learn and apply strategies and skills, thus increasing their workplace independence.

Designing for Independence
Our fndings support our assertion that IDD employees want to be supported in their own ability to address workplace challenges.Of the thirteen prototypes that participants developed, twelve of them incorporated strategies that assisted the users' ability to resolve a workplace challenge, and only one completed a work task for the user.Our participants wanted to attempt, learn, and apply new work skills on their own through the use of self-regulatory strategies, guided lists, and learning resources, before asking others for help.This "try frst" mentality and desire to internalize skills aligns with the goal of workplace stabilization, and demonstrates our participants' desire to contribute positively to their jobs.
6.1.1Supporting Problem Investigation.In line with previous HCI research that cautions against providing explicit technological solutions to a user's or community's challenges [34], we suggest that designing for independence requires providing strategies that can help lead the user to address the problem through their own strengths, instead of providing direct solutions.We fnd that this is particularly true in complex social interactions or workplace situations that require problem-solving.For example, in the case of challenging customer interactions, our participants wanted a list of questions that they could use to investigate the problem themselves, along with reminders to consider the customer's perspective and respond with empathy.A technology that can provide a list of questions that facilitate problem-solving is supporting the user's independence by allowing them to consider important aspects of the situation frst and act accordingly, instead of being told exactly how to address the problem or to immediately involve a supervisor.
6.1.2Acknowledging Previous Successful Strategies.We found that another way to support the user and bolster their independence is through prompting the user to consider similar previous challenges and how they solved them.When the user has previously completed the task they are seeking support for, the system can remind them of this, therefore providing mental scafolding for the user to recognize that they have the capability of doing it again.This strategy supports independence through bolstering self-confdence, and can be broadly applied.For example, it can be used for self-regulation, skill learning, and social interactions.
6.1.3Providing Options.Lastly, our fndings suggest that another way to support the independence of neurodivergent employees is to provide options for addressing problems, and allowing them to choose which, if any, are best for them to employ.For example, providing a list of therapy options or a series of learning resources for the user to choose and act on can provide the user the ability to choose how to move forward in the given situation, exercising their agency to make the fnal decision.

Strengths as Design Requirements
Our ultimate design purpose was to explore avenues to create design requirements for a workplace supportive technology for IDD employees through the extraction of strengths from our participants workplace strategies of action.Through analysis of the results of our co-design activities such as the Tree of Life activity, virtual job coach inquiry assessment, and user stories, we were able to surface strengths that our participants valued highly and want to use in the workplace.Below, we discuss how these strengths can be incorporated into a job coach technology.
6.2.1 Relationships.We found that relationships with loved ones and community were commonly referred to by participants when discussing values and related to both non-work and work contexts.While there are existing studies on the impacts of community and relations within technology for the ND population [46], little work has been done on integrating those fndings into technologies for 'workplace' support.Most vocational support interventions focus on skill developments to support social interactions such as developing social skills, making eye contact, or reading facial expressions [3,9,89].However, few investigate the integration of supporting the individual through social relationships.Burt et al found that in modifed work programs, lack of family support would lead to the intervention failing, and that success of the intervention was more likely if there was heavy family involvement [17].Additionally, other studies have found that autistic individuals show great interest in sharing sensitive questions or challenging situations with their close social networks, and technology can facilitate this type of interaction with the goal of independence in everyday life [46].
When considering how to incorporate the support of community and loved ones into a workplace-supportive technology, designers and researchers can consider direct lines to known loved ones, such as the call a loved one feature from our participants' prototype.Other researchers have examined the concept of utilizing community and close social networks to assist ND individuals.The SocialMirror was a design concept developed to support autistic individuals' everyday decision-making by leveraging an online network of family, friends, or caregivers, to ofer help in daily tasks such as professional attire [46].However, this study raises concerns about conficting input from diferent caregivers.Especially for workplace support systems, this can be a challenge facing technology that seeks to integrate community and relationships for support.For example, a loved one of an ND employee may not be aware of the job's best practices or duties, and might unknowingly give advice to the user that goes against their work policy.Furthermore, for relationships and workplace support technology, there is a consideration to be made for the balance between support from a loved one and independence.To advance our understanding of how to efectively integrate loved ones into workplace technology, future research should explore design approaches for balancing the benefts that ND employees can derive from the strong support of their relationships [17] while ensuring that this support is received without leading to over-reliance.6.2.2 Self-Regulation and Management.Our participants valued their ability to be dependable in the workplace, and strengths they used to achieve this were self-regulation and self-management.For example, when a user needs immediate help in self-regulation to regain calm in the workplace, our participants suggested active strategies such as guided breathing and counting exercises.Optimal self-regulation abilities have been linked to positive social relationships, productivity, achievement, and a positive sense of self [12].Our fndings suggest that IDD employees fnd value in self-regulation, therefore technologies that support this population should incorporate strategies to support this.
Further, self-management strategies that do not require problem solving such as adhering to time commitments are efective direct solutions to support workplace independence.Similar to previous research, our study suggests that IDD participants want these features to support their desires to be dependable, hard-working employees who can operate independently [36].Therefore, for technologies that are intended to support ND employees in SE settings, features that support their abilities to track and manage their responsibilities are crucial for facilitating agency and independence.

CONCLUSIONS
Our study aims to address technologies that reduce the agency of the user through defcit-and needs-based designs by investigating ways to incorporate the strengths of our IDD study population into a workplace supportive technology.We found that our participants wanted a technology that supported their ability to operate independently, as opposed to the technology solving a problem for them.Designing technology to support cognitive processes like problem solving skills through questions that can help investigate a problem, acknowledgment and encouragement of re-using past successful strategies, and providing multiple options for the user to evaluate for appropriateness are ways technologies can facilitate independence.Finally, understanding the strengths of the participants and using those strengths to motivate feature development can support their independence by creating a technology that is personalized to the users inherent strategies of action.Our participants most prominent strengths were their relationships and desire to dependable employees, and these strengths can be utilized in strategies such as contacting loved ones when stressed, or utilizing time-management features.Ultimately, we expand the concept of capacity-focused design to include strengths, and contribute design implications for workplace technologies that seek to bolster independence and agency of neurodivergent users.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Images from P10 Tree of Life.Each section represents a diferent area of life.The roots represent background, the trunk represents skills and strengths, and the branches represent dreams.

Figure 2 :
Figure 2: Screenshot of Virtual Job Coach Unity App on Zoom Interface

Figure 3 :
Figure 3: Images of P6 prototype with wayfnding function to breakroom and self-regulation

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: Image of P4 prototype with step-by-step guidance feature

Table 1 :
Summary of study participants