Inclusive Design is Good Design (and Good Business)
To this day, many people don't know that an iPhone with no physical buttons is a great device for people who are blind.
"Using a touch screen by someone who is blind was a concept never even dreamed of in 2007. Technology is constantly evolving, and I am sure it will continue surprising all of us. Speaking of surprises, I am not amazed that non-disabled individuals still ask me how I use my iPhone when they see me flicking and tapping the screen with ease. After all, I myself did not think I would be able to ever enjoy this innovative device when it came out 10 years ago."
https://chicagolighthouse.org/sandys-view/blind-using-the-iphone/
Around that time, I was working for Travelocity. We were partnering with the National Federation of the Blind, working to improve the Travelocity experience. When I saw our consultant who had been supporting us using her iPhone, I was amazed.
For Apple, they decided it was the right thing to do. It's also the right thing for innovation and business. Accessibility can solve unanticipated problems leading to innovation and improved experiences (ever "watch" a video without headphones using closed captioning?). And when you follow the money, people with disabilities represent over $6 trillion in spending power.
Luckily, there is a trend of designing solutions that work for people. And there are methods and individuals that focus specifically on the many products and services that both you and I use today. This happens both on the consumer front as well as in the workplace.
Inclusive design can mean various things—people who have challenges with: visuals, dexterity, hearing, cognitive abilities, and speech all can be improved using modern accessibility standards and inclusive toolkits (and by most accounts, these are 100s of millions of people).
In fact, Apple acquired a company focused on a technology that allowed people with carpal tunnel syndrome to use a computer without a keyboard — using touchpads for each hand instead. This became Apple's innovative multi-touch interface on the iPhone.
Inclusive design, or really, good design, should include all factors and personas of any given product or service. And not just the common users, or the ones you, as a designer, developer or product leader identify with, but all the users.
This can also identify users with related limitations; we include situational impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. Microsoft puts it in its Inclusive Toolkit: Disability = Mismatched Human Interactions. This leads to products and services that just don't work for the people intended to use them.
We all have personal biases. This is why experience-driven practices, where you start with that experience you're looking to create and robustly involve users throughout the process, is so important. Where I work at projekt202, understanding customer needs is core to what we do. We use an empathetic, qualitative method across users to really get into the mindset of a range of individuals. We call this "revealing reality" — because while we may be great designers, some of us (including me) are not female or a person of color.
We need to walk a mile in the user's shoes. It could be we're designing a call center solution, but most of us have not worked years in a call center. Or think of situational challenges, where someone needs to choose between affording TV service or phone service, where we may have the luxury of both.
As an example, while creating one strategy for a large mobile service provider, we used a method to co-create with low-income users to prioritize household expenses. This method had us laying out cards with different costs to sort and prioritize. This is the data we need to understand more about their world and how to market and make products that fit them.
We also need to consider the concept of recognizing exclusion. This starts with a robust process for understanding users, identifying opportunities, and creating seamless experiences that work for, not against our customers and employees.
And of course, having an inclusive and diverse workplace is a huge step to helping move your organization in the right direction.
"In order to create business models and build products that serve all customers, a critical mass of employees who represent the many identities of customers is needed. Having varying experiences and perspectives isn't a shortcut to understanding what customers experience."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebekahbastian/2019/05/13/why-we-need-to-stop-talking-about-diversity-of-thought/#26cbcee367c3
Rebekah mentions some of the many stories where skin color or being a female unwittingly made a product or service unusable or undesirable. This is entirely unnecessary and can be easily fixed with a diverse workforce and the right customer understanding methods within your organization.
Inclusivity can even be within materials we use and share as a design or product team within our organizations.
"We realize, however, that many researchers and designers can be perplexed when facing stock-image banks catering to a monolithic demographic calibrated to a white, affluent, heteronormative middle-class."
So not only include a diverse set of users in your research and strategy but also visually show them in your readouts and artifacts. Work to build genuine empathy throughout your organization.
In the end, understanding people and their contexts help us define the right solutions that will be successful in a workplace or consumer solution. This is and should always be our goal because when products work for all people, businesses are more effective, costs are reduced, and sales increase. It's a win-win for people and companies, the reason to use design to solve problems in the first place.