Evidence and Impact

Lived experience is where this work comes from. It is not, on its own, evidence that a tool works.

This page explains how we build, how we test, and what we can honestly claim at this stage. It will grow as we learn more. Where we do not have evidence yet, we say so rather than filling the gap with adjectives.

How our tools are made

Every tool starts with a problem that keeps happening, not with a product idea.

1. Notice the pattern. Usually because it happened to me, or because the same thing keeps coming up in co-design work, workshops and conversations.
2. Work out what actually goes wrong. Not the surface complaint, the mechanism underneath it. People do not struggle in meetings because they lack confidence. They struggle because nobody told them what to prepare.
3. Strip it back. Find the smallest version that still helps. Most advocacy resources fail by being too long to use on a bad day.
4. Build it. Plain language, one thing at a time, usable when you are exhausted.
5. Test it with real people, including disabled people, people with chronic and rare conditions, and people who have never done any of this before.
6. Fix what did not work. Then test again.

Co-design, honestly described

I sit on co-design panels and reference groups, including with Volunteers WA and Carers WA, and much of what I build is shaped by what comes up in that work and in community conversations.

To be precise about what that does and does not mean. It means the problems these tools address are real and recurring, identified alongside other people rather than invented alone. It does not mean every individual product has been through a formal co-design process with a recruited panel. As specific products go through structured testing, this page will say which ones, with how many people, and what changed as a result.

What we test for

• Could the person work out where to start, without help?
• Did they understand what the tool was for?
• Could they complete it on their own?
• Did anything feel blaming, patronising or overwhelming?
• Did they understand what was being saved?
• Could they find their information again?
• Did they leave with a useful next step?

Those are task-based questions rather than “did you like it”, because people are polite and politeness is not data.

Testing includes people using assistive technology, and people trying things on a low-energy day, because a tool that only works when you are well is not much use.

What we can and cannot claim

What we can say: these tools are built from patterns that recur across services and systems, shaped by lived experience and community input, and written to be usable by people who are tired, in pain, or new to all of this.

What we cannot yet say: that we have measured outcomes at scale. We do not have longitudinal data. We do not have a control group. Anyone in this field claiming otherwise this early is overstating it.

What we are working towards measuring: whether people find a starting point, whether they finish what they started, whether they leave with a next step they understand, and whether they come back. Measures about usefulness, not vanity numbers about popularity.

Why there are no testimonials here yet

You will notice this page has no glowing quotes on it.

That is deliberate. Products are still being tested. Collecting testimonials while people are still trialling something, and before we have consent processes we are confident in, would be putting marketing ahead of the people we are meant to be serving.

When testimonials do appear, they will be given with explicit permission, de-identified where the person wants that, and never edited to sound more enthusiastic than the person actually was.

Tell us what did not work

Feedback about what was confusing, clunky or unhelpful is more useful to us than praise. Email hello@lighteningup.com.au.