Award for Accessible Design

Award Sponsor: Works Design

Winner: Aleah Zeineddine

Winning Project: Step-By-Step

Award Sponsor: Works Design; School: Conestoga College, Kitchener, ON; Educator Support: Michael Powell RGD

Step-By-Step is an accessible cooking resource for people living with dementia and other neurological conditions, designed to reduce cognitive strain while promoting confidence, familiarity and independence in everyday tasks. Every recipe follows the same consistent, repetitive sequence of steps, so that even as outcomes vary, users build recognition and comfort through structure. 

Clear photographs — self-produced step-by-step imagery paired with edited Adobe Stock photography for the cover and category overview pages — illustrate ingredients and each stage of the process, minimizing reliance on memory or complex written instructions, while recipes are organized into breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack sections and colour-coded by complexity to help caregivers choose recipes suited to individual ability. Clean layouts, friendly aesthetics and highly legible typography reinforce a calm, user-centred experience intended primarily for people in the early-to-mid stages of cognitive change, as well as the caregivers, family members and healthcare professionals who support them.

Honourable Mentions

  • Sleep Affirmation - Short Animation Reel by Tracey Erin Mendoza, Durham College, Oshawa, ON
  • Groundwork by Janna Montalbo, York University, Toronto, ON
  • Designing for Inclusion: Enhancing Design Studio Classrooms for Diverse Cognitive and Learning Needs through Universal and Neuro-Inclusive Design by Jasmeen Nona, MacEwan University, Edmonton, AB
  • Crossover by Saba Rahimi, George Brown College, Toronto, ON
  • Playing Cards for Kids by Lauren Thiessen, Niagara College, Welland, ON

Judges