Inclusive design is the design and development of products, services, and environments accessible and usable by as many people as possible, regardless of their age, ability, or background. It aims to eliminate barriers and maximize the inclusion and participation of all individuals. It is ensuring that everyone can benefit from and contribute to society.
Inclusive design goes beyond traditional accessibility measures and considers a wide range of diversity, such as physical, sensory, cognitive, and emotional capabilities. It focuses on creating flexible, adaptable, and customizable solutions and enabling people with different needs and preferences to interact with them effectively.
Inclusive design approaches involve:
- We are involving people with diverse perspectives and experiences in the design process.
- We are conducting user research and testing.
- We are considering a variety of contexts and scenarios.
It also considers principles such as simplicity, clarity, flexibility, and robustness.
Inclusive design aims to provide equal opportunities and access and enhance the overall user experience for everyone. Considering diverse users’ needs can lead to more innovative and impactful solutions that benefit society.
What Principles govern Inclusive Design?
The Inclusive Digital Design Research Centre at OCAD University in Canada provides three requirements for it:
Recognize variety and Individuality
The uniqueness of humanity must be taken into account while achieving inclusive design. Consider if it’s possible to tailor your content for a specific audience or a group of people who share certain qualities.
Inclusive methods and resources
We’ve already discussed how it is more of a method than an end. And your team is where a genuinely inclusive process starts. Whether they’re generating the designs or just providing comments and suggestions to improve them, make sure your team includes members with various viewpoints in decision-making.
Take a lesson from a variety.
Considering diversity is the primary objective of an inclusive design system. A varied staff that can offer new and unique insights into a problem is an essential prerequisite. As a result, their experiences are covered in a far broader context than those of a team with a comparable background.
Why should we use Inclusive Design?
There are several reasons why we should use inclusive design:
- Accessibility: It ensures that everyone, regardless of their abilities or disabilities, can access and use products, services, and experiences. It removes barriers that may hinder people with disabilities from fully participating in various aspects of life.
- Increasing user base: Businesses and organizations can tap into a more extensive user base by designing inclusive products and services. This includes people with disabilities, older adults, and individuals with different cultural backgrounds. Inclusive design allows businesses to reach a wider audience and potentially increase their customer base.
- Innovation: It encourages creative problem-solving and thinking outside the box. By considering various users’ diverse needs and perspectives, designers are pushed to develop innovative solutions that cater to a broader range of users. This can lead to the development of new and improved products and services.
- Ethical responsibility: It promotes equal opportunities for all individuals, regardless of their differences. It aligns with ethical principles of equality, diversity, and inclusion, ensuring that no one is left behind or excluded from participating fully in society.
Inclusive Digital Design Versus Accessibility and Universal Design
Accessibility and universal design are two terms associated with inclusive digital design that are frequently confused. All three ideas strive to create inclusive experiences by lowering barriers between people and technology.
The goal of accessibility is to make technology and interfaces usable for anyone with physical, mental, cognitive, or sensory impairments. Because it is concentrated on particular adjustments, accessibility has a more limited reach than inclusive design. Additionally, accessibility is more easily evaluated than inclusive and universal because of accessibility standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Accessibility is merely a bare minimum for providing people with impairments with meaningful experiences, though.
With the help of universal design, all users can access and utilize one experience to the fullest. In contrast to inclusive innovation, universal imposes a single design solution without needing modifications or specialized design. As long as they produce the required results, it welcomes and embraces a variety of design options. Since it is expensive to construct several functional versions of a real thing or location, universal design is often more prevalent in environmental and tactile settings. Because such interfaces are inexpensive and straightforward to customize, they are utilized increasingly frequently in creating digital products.
Benefits of Inclusive Design
It is a human-centered approach to design that aims to apply to as diverse a range of people as possible. It can benefit businesses and society in many ways, such as:
- Expanded audience reach: By incorporating the concept of inclusivity, businesses can connect with a broader target audience that includes individuals from diverse backgrounds and identities. This boosts their reach and potential customer base.
- Increased customer engagement: Inclusive images and videos for advertising resonate with viewers on a deeper level, leading to increased attention.
- Improved brand reputation: Inclusive design can help businesses build a socially responsible and inclusive reputation.
- Increased innovation: Inclusive design can lead to new products and services that are accessible to all segments of the market.
- Increased revenue: Inclusively designed products and services with edge users in mind can reach and benefit up to four times the size of the intended audience and enable organizations to increase their revenue by growing their target markets.
- Improved usability: It can enhance the usability of products and services for all users, not just those with disabilities.
- Reduced legal risk: Inclusive design can help businesses avoid legal risks associated with discrimination against people with disabilities.
- Improved employee morale: It can help businesses create a more inclusive and diverse workplace, improving employee morale and productivity.
- Increased customer loyalty: Inclusive design can help businesses build customer loyalty by demonstrating a commitment to social responsibility and inclusivity.
- Improved customer satisfaction: Inclusive design can improve customer satisfaction by making products and services more accessible and easier for all users.
Where Accessible Design and Inclusive Design Collide
There are many parallels between the inclusive and accessible design approaches, even if there are some clear distinctions. These tools enable designers to produce goods that the broadest possible audience can use, irrespective of their conditions.
Together, inclusive and accessible design helps remove obstacles that prevent individuals from utilizing objects efficiently. When designers make products for individuals much like themselves, they frequently unintentionally build these obstacles throughout the design process. Designers can create products that are usable by everyone by using their methodologies and showing empathy for various groups of people.
Learning from how people in a particular setting adjust to technological hurdles is one way that both inclusive and accessible design will advance. Designers provide better solutions by looking at individuals’ strategies to deal with various problems. Designers might offer an audio version if, for instance, a person uses text-to-speech to listen to an item while unable to read it (due to a circumstance or a handicap).
Challenges of Inclusive Design
It is a human-centered approach to design that aims to apply to as diverse a range of people as possible. But, it also faces some challenges, such as:
- Education of designers: Designers need to be aware of the principles and benefits of inclusive design and how to apply them in their practice. They must also learn to recognize and overcome their biases and assumptions and collaborate with others with different perspectives and experiences.
- Communication of the importance of inclusive design to the public: It needs to be communicated effectively to the public, especially to potential users and clients, to raise awareness and demand for it. It must also be showcased through examples and case studies demonstrating its value and impact.
- The business rationale for inclusive design to industry: It needs to be justified to industry stakeholders, such as investors, managers, and developers, who have concerns about its feasibility, cost, and return on investment. It also needs to be aligned with the business goals and strategies of the organization.
- Evaluation of the impact of inclusive design: It needs to be evaluated regarding its outcomes and benefits for the users and society. It must also be measured against relevant criteria and indicators, such as accessibility, usability, satisfaction, loyalty, engagement, innovation, revenue, etc.
Conclusion
Inclusive design is crucial for creating a more inclusive and equitable society. It recognizes that diversity is a strength and that everyone should be able to participate and contribute fully. By making products, services, and environments accessible and usable by all, it promotes equal opportunities, independence, and dignity for individuals of all abilities. It benefits marginalized and underrepresented populations and improves the overall user experience for everyone. It is a moral imperative and an intelligent business strategy that can lead to innovation, increased customer satisfaction, and market growth.