One of these will influence their experience with or perception of a design. Illustration of various app customers for a financial app By Vanessa Bowman Inclusive design, therefore, is a way of addressing these situations, and it can describe anything from using stock images with racially diverse subjects to making design considerations for people who are using a mobile phone instead of a desktop. Accommodating for any one of these exclusions often has an effect on others. For example, captions on a video can help the hearing-impaired as in a noisy setting.
As Microsoft puts it: “Designing inclusively image manipulation service doesn’t mean you’re making one thing for all people. You’re designing a diversity of ways for everyone to participate in an experience with a sense of belonging.” Lastly, I’ve highlighted a few times that inclusive design is a process. This is key to understanding inclusive design: it is a verb, a continuous act of doing. It is not an end result, where you step back and say, “We’ve done it! We’ve achieved maximum inclusivity. well as the hearing-able watching the same video.
By moving a user from an outgroup to the ingroup your design caters to, you can accurately say that you’ve practiced inclusive design, but of course there are still excluded people out there. The work continues. Ultimately, it is both an approach to design with actionable steps and a mindset that you bring to your work everyday, requiring imagination, learning and empathy. All said, inclusive design is a sometimes difficult concept to grasp as what it describes can be so broad I thoroughly recommend reading the interview.