Kindling for Inclusive Design Jam
Articles to inspire thinking about inclusive design
In preparation for an upcoming design jam* focused on inclusive design, I’m gathering articles to help spark ideas and open minds to opportunity areas for innovation. *Design jam is playful way of saying a design workshop, where we get together to focus on a topic to build understanding and ideas based on it.
Xbox Adaptive Controller
Article: Microsoft’s trickiest product might be its most important
Most products are built to work the same for everyone. The Adaptive Controller is meant to work differently for everyone.
Bloomberg — Explore Financial Data by Sound
“There’s a lot of criticism of empathy exercises you need to be aware of when designing for accessibility,” cautioned Emily. “So we tried to be really thoughtful about how we used them. As a sighted person, you don’t want to do an exercise that inspires you to feel pity or even awe for the experience of someone with a disability.”
“In our simulations, we tried to focus on completing a specific financial task like checking a bank account or looking at a chart using a screen reader,” said Nora. “We then used the insights we got to create experiments with different tactile, non-visual ways to display chart data. In the end, empathy exercises aren’t a replacement for talking to actual users, but they can help.”
Amazon Alexa’s Show and Tell
Article: “Alexa, what am I holding?”
“It’s a tremendous help and a huge time saver because the Echo Show just sits on my counter, and I don’t have to go and find another tool or person to help me identify something. I can do it on my own by just asking Alexa,” Grijalva said.
Additional Resources From Microsoft Design
Many additional resources are available from Microsoft: Inclusive Design
Inclusive Design is a methodology, born out of digital environments, that enables and draws on the full range of human diversity. Most importantly, this means including and learning from people with a range of perspectives.
