We've been working with Beresford Street Kitchen (BSK), a social enterprise in Jersey that runs a café, a catering service and a print works. What sets BSK apart is who staffs it: everyone working there, referred to as "crew," has a learning disability and/or is autistic. For BSK, providing meaningful employment isn't a side project. It's the whole reason the organisation exists.

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The challenge is that a lot of workplace tools and equipment, especially in busy environments like cafés, are designed with one type of user in mind, and it's rarely someone with a learning disability or autism. So even when crew members are capable and motivated, they can end up relying on more support than they should, simply because the equipment wasn't built with them in mind. That limits which roles people can take on, and how confident they feel doing them.

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We chose to focus on coffee making because it's one of the most frequent tasks in BSK's café, made up of several small steps that need to happen in the right order. When one part of that process is unclear or inconsistent, it can disrupt the whole task. We wanted to look closely at that one moment and design something that actually removes the barrier, rather than just making it slightly easier to work around.