What does inclusive design mean to you?

When I think of inclusion design, I think of a design that is accessible to as many people as possible. For example, a design that can cater to color blind individuals, deaf/hard of hearing individuals, blind individuals, English as a Second Language (ESL) individuals, and/or low technology literacy individuals.

Inclusion Picture from Unsplash: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/inclusion-group-wheelchair-2731340/

Touching on the topic of inclusion, a few principles taught this week highlight how inclusion can be maximized:

  1. Recognize Exclusion = Identifying the extremes and trying to remove as many barriers to accommodate for the extreme cases
  2. Solve for One, Extend to Many = One solution can be utilized for multiple situations
  3. Learn from Diversity = Testing with as many different kinds of people

I don’t think there is one product that can be used universally, however, the principles above definitely provide ‘food for thought’ when designing a product or lesson plan. Perhaps, it would be easier to have multiple items that target certain groups of individuals. For example, kids who are hard of hearing can have live transcripts of the lesson.