Designing For Inclusion: Flipping the Script
We think of Inclusive Design as making sure everyone is included. But what if we focused on making sure no one is excluded?
As Learning Experience Designers, we strive to design in ways which include as many people as possible. It’s a challenging task, even in the best of circumstances! Recently, I focused my personal learning on gaining a deeper understanding of inclusive design principles. What I learned forced me to stop and ask if, in our mission to be inclusive, we are giving enough thought to the ways which our designs might unintentionally exclude?
Accessible vs. Universal vs. Inclusive
There are a lot of terms out there when it comes to designing for inclusion. Let’s start with a brief overview of the most common terms.
Universal design refers to the design of physical environments and is a term often used by architects and environmental designers. Universal design focuses on making sure an environment, or sometimes a physical product, is accessible and usable by the broadest possible audience.
(Universal design) is a fundamental condition of good design. If an environment is accessible, usable, convenient and a pleasure to use, everyone benefits.
— National Disability Authority
Another term we often see is accessibility. Accessibility is defined as “the ability to access”, and is usually thought of in terms of designing for those with disabilities. Accessibility is key to the foundation of both universal design and inclusive design, and is an end goal. There are a number of “checklists’’ to help ensure experiences of all types meet accessibility guidelines. In a physical environment, accessible design might look like ramps or audible crosswalk signals. In the digital environment, accessible design includes font sizes, color contrasts, and inclusion of alternate text.
However, humans have more variability than what can simply be described using our abilities. Inclusive design shares many of the same principles of universal design, but the term was coined specifically with the digital environment in mind. Inclusive design also seeks to go beyond accessibility, aiming to design for inclusion across the full spectrum of human experience.
According to the Inclusive Design Research Centre, inclusive design is “a design that considers the full range of human diversity with respect to ability, language, culture, gender, age and other forms of human difference.” By this definition, designing an accessible experience is only one part of inclusive design.
Inclusive Design Removes Barriers
Effective inclusive design focuses on removing barriers, as opposed to designing to “include” a specific demographic. What does that mean?
In her book Mismatch, Kat Holmes offers the example of a product which was designed “for women.” This product might be described (and marketed) as “inclusive”. But inclusive design is more than targeting a product to a specific group. Inclusive design seeks to learn what the specific barriers are, then responds by removing those barriers for future users. In the example of an “inclusive” product for women, exploration needs to go beyond assuming that being female was the only barrier at hand. An inclusive design process asks “Was that barrier as simple as ‘identifying as female’, or was it something more nuanced?” “Are there other underlying barriers at work?” “What are the experiences users had when faced with barriers?”
Inclusive design is a process, not an end goal.
What makes a design inclusive is the willingness to seek out differing perspectives, drawing from those perspectives to discover new solutions. Understanding where and how exclusion happens is key, as is keeping an open mind that those barriers may be different from what we assume. The only way to answer these questions is to learn from the perspectives of those who have experienced exclusion.
“Inclusive design works…as a verb.” — Kat Holmes
Inclusive design has many layers of complexity, and is not a “one size fits all” approach. It is best treated as a framework that can be used to help drive the design process. It’s a complicated goal. But there are two simple practices we can incorporate to help us get as close as possible:
- Assemble the right team.
We have all been excluded from something at some time in our lives. Leverage those collective experiences in a valuable way! A team that includes different cultural backgrounds, abilities, age ranges, and gender identities can have a powerful impact on the experience of your future learners. - Involve your users.
As LXDs, this might seem like an obvious statement. Talking to our users is at the core of what we all do, right? The challenge here is to not fall into the trap of designing “for” users, but rather to design “with” them. Seek out those who have faced barriers to inclusion and listen to their experiences. Include learners in your design process through collaborative design methods such as brainstorming or co-creation workshops. Understand where exclusion happens, so you can design solutions.
Additional Resources
Inclusive Design is a complex concept, and there is so much information out there that it can be overwhelming! Here’s some resources to help you explore inclusive design more deeply on your next project!
Understanding universal design vs accessibility vs inclusive design
What Is Inclusive Design? A Beginner’s Guide [2021]
Microsoft’s Inclusive Design Toolkit
User Persona Spectrums: What They Are and How to Use Them
Sacrificial Concepts. What are they? | by Christina M. Chung
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