Inclusive design is an approach to create accessible products and experiences that cane be used and understood by as many people as possible. The goal of using inclusive design is to go beyond accessibility to consider users’ diverse needs, backgrounds and experiences, ensuring every person regardless of their gender, location, language and physical abilities are able to enjoy and use products or services. Some specific people who are commonly excluded from product design and service design include people who do not speak English natively, people with restricted mobility or those with different cognitive abilities and although these exclusions can be quite obvious, the majority of time they are subconscious. Exclusion happens when we solve problems using our own biases so to help prevent this we can follow inclusive design principles such as recognise exclusion, the biases/ mismatches, learn from diversity and be able to solve for one but extend for many people.
The United Nations states that disability resides in the society not in the person and that they aim to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities. Some examples we can already see in day to day life where inclusive design has been implemented is lowered curbs which originally was designed for wheelchair users but now is used by a much wider user range and makes the paths and crossings a lot more accessible for everyone. Likewise, tactile pavement was designed to help provide a warning of curb or stairway for those who are visually impaired so they can navigate their surroundings safely.
We took a look as a class to recognise the different types of disabilities people may have as well as ones which are temporary or situational. This really helps us get a really good of the wide range of users you have to accommodate within inclusive design, the ways in which they interact with content and the different ways in which we can make their experiences easier.
Visual
Visual - Temporary
Visual - Situational
Auditory
Auditory - Temporary
Auditory - Situational
Verbal
Verbal - Temporary
Verbal - Situational
Motor
Motor - Temporary
Motor - Situational
Cognitive
Cognitive - Temporary
Cognitive - Situational
It is important we take every single person into consideration because if you are not inclusive to all, it can lead to hefty fines or court cases especially within the US. Hasbro were sued in 2023 due to them not meeting the ADA regulations for their website with accessible features missing including alt text, descriptive links, and inaccessible forms which prevented screen reader users from fully interacting with the experience and purchasing Hasbro’s goods and services. Another big lawsuit was against Amazon who today has very accessible websites and applications however in 2018 they were sued by a visually impaired customer as their websites were incompatible with screen readers and refreshable Braille displays the software that allows visually impaired users to read web content.
We can use the following questions to answer what the attentions of our product or service. I completed it based on my project “CHECK”.
Who is using your product?
What are they doing?
Where are they doing it?
When are they doing it?
Why are they doing it?
How are they doing it?