“Inclusive design considers the needs of all users as a product or service is being developed, from start to finish. With inclusive or human-centered design, a person with a disability is simply another individual with specific lived experiences. Organizations that design for diversity and edge cases, including individuals with disabilities, will create better solutions and experiences for all users.”

– Laurie Henneborn and Ray Eitel-Porter. AI for Disability Inclusion (2021)^[1]

An important corollary and enhancement to both UX and UD is inclusive design, also sometimes called “co-design.” Inclusive design entails shifting the power base from providers to clients, engaging the end-user (and ‘edge user’ – those on the farthest margins) from ideation to manufacturing and testing.  It is a design approach that seeks to create products and environments that are usable by everyone.

Inclusive design goes beyond most user-centered design frameworks, as it reintroduces diversity – and with considerable intention – back into design.  We need ways to check, balance, and measure the inclusivity of our designs.  Inclusive environmental design through architecture, planning and industrial design, as well as inclusive technology design “considers the full range of human diversity with respect to ability, language, culture, gender, age and other forms of human difference”^[2] The approach has been used in the development of many types of accessible environments, including housing, recreation centres, and some public spaces.  While inclusive design can be more daunting and costly upfront for smaller firms and start-ups, the design benefits are enormous.

Microsoft’s Inclusive Design Toolkit emphasizes that “designing inclusively doesn’t mean you’re making one thing for all people. You’re designing a diversity of ways for everyone to participate in an experience with a sense of belonging.”^[3]  Parallelling the distinction between the medical and social models, it starts from the premise that disability is not just a human health condition, but is a product of the shortcomings of environmental design – i.e. recognizing that our built and manufactured environments produce mismatches and sub-optimal outcomes in human interaction.  Similarly, Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines emphasize inclusive design, and in particular empathy, in the development of apps.^[4]

SPOTLIGHT: Design the Future