Inclusive Design Principles
Inclusive Design Principles
Core Concept
Inclusive design aims to create products, services, and environments that can be used by as many people as possible, regardless of their abilities, age, gender, or other factors that might typically limit access or usability.
Key Insights from "Mismatch" by Kat Holmes
Fundamental Principles
- "Inclusion is a skill that can be developed over time" - Not an innate talent but a practiced capability
- "Everyone gains and loses their abilities over the course of their life" - Disability is not binary but universal and temporal
- "Exclusion touches everyone inevitably" - We all experience mismatches between our abilities and environments
The Inclusive Design Mindset
- Recognize exclusion as the starting point for inclusive design
- Shift from "designing for" to "designing with" affected populations
- View exclusion experts (those who experience barriers) as the most valuable contributors
Three Essential Skills of Inclusive Designers
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Identify ability biases and mismatched interactions
- Recognize how our own abilities influence design choices
- Detect where environments and people don't match up
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Create multiple ways to participate in experiences
- Ask: "How many ways can a human being engage in a given activity?"
- Provide options that accommodate different abilities
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Design for interdependence and complementary skills
- Recognize that independence is a myth; we all rely on assistance
- Bring together people with complementary capabilities
The Persona Spectrum Approach
- "Solve for one, extend to many" methodology
- Design for the extreme user case, and the solution will benefit many others
- Example: Captioning helps people with hearing impairments, in noisy environments, and those learning languages
Application Principles
- Start by identifying who might be excluded by your design
- Include people with diverse abilities throughout the design process
- Consider both permanent, temporary, and situational disabilities
- Test designs with users representing diverse ability spectrums
- Create adaptable, customizable solutions where possible