Why being inclusive challenges designers

Full marks to the WHS lead who spoke about the elephant in the room at the autism@work summit in Melbourne back in July. To be truthful, the issue raised was not about ASD, though this turns up in design for neurodiversity. My heckler was vexed about design for the physical environment and the seeming impossibility of guaranteeing everyone’s safety when tactile indicators for the sight impaired create a trip hazard for the less nimble ageing worker. We could look at this from the viewpoint of one population versus another or one design feature over another.  I’d like to jump into the deep end. Just how do you realistically bring in all the instances needed for inclusive design into a universal ‘design for all’ world, to meet both intent and legislation? First let’s clarify some of the basics in three points - there are nuances here in the intent of the design approach, usually there is more than one approach going at the same time and the devil is in the detail.

1. Universal versus inclusive design

TWO APPROACHES COMBINED

Universal design is often defined as ‘one design for all’. Jutta Trevinarus at the Inclusive Design Research Centre helps us out with a definition of inclusive design as ‘one design for one’. I’d describe the contrast between the two mathematically as universal design aiming to account for ‘n’ people (insert the count of people in your workplace you aim to accommodate) versus designing for n=1 which is specifically designing for each individual in your workplace from the ground up.

The two concepts can appear superficially to work together with the idea of Universal Design taken as designing for the ‘average’ person on the bell curve or normative distribution, assuming that you’ve taken in enough standard deviations either side to account for the variation away from the average. The very ends of that curve, say the last 1% to 5% of people are not accounted for and because there are not ‘many’ people who fit in that grouping, the design is considered effectively universal as it meets the requirements of a substantially large population. This is designing to the 95th%ile or 99th%ile.

Inclusive design deals with the people at the ends of the curve: “By focusing on the extreme users, Inclusive design will enable them to be able to use it, while a lot of users that are having (temporary) similar needs will also be covered”

2. Combining Universal and inclusive design approaches

The rational conclusion might be that by adding in inclusive design features to a universal design process, the needs of everyone get met. Each new requirement is added until everyone is accounted for. The design once again becomes universal.

Our physical example of tactile indicators (TDIs) on flooring can help us open up our thinking here. The challenge might be in the installation, or the materials in the design or any other number of levels. Having ceramic versus rubber tiles (design), recessing the tiles (floor design and installation) or better glue (materials, maintenance) can all make a difference. There are other levels of prevention, for example the walker can have shoes that don’t grip too much, train to get better clearance of the foot when walking or use a stick for picking up uneven levels or recovering balance.

How user specific design turns up

Here is how this challenge might be represented. Relying on the universal design approach specifies the standards which presumably cover all of the possible issues (glue, tile type, when the tile). Adding an inclusive design approach might mean specifying tiles for material or luminance for particular areas where more of the people who walk there are vulnerable to missing a change in levels or to tripping and falling. Whatever is done, these tweaks might one person’s needs for a higher surface trump another person’s needs re avoiding the foot stopping mid move. The design is now not universal and it can’t be fully inclusive as the features that serve one group of vulnerable people directly conflict with the features needed by another.

How inclusive design pushes the boundaries

3. Using Stories to show universal and inclusive design in real time

Inside any universal design there are most likely features that are not working for someone, say the noisy team space with bright lights might energise some people and not be tolerable for someone with sensory sensitivities.

The experiences people share show how inclusive the design is. If it misses out on features that one person needs to function, to feel accounted for, to be welcome or to belong, then the design is not truly inclusive. Here is the rub. The stories go underground and the stories change. Sometimes people don’t want to share what is going on, perhaps feeling embarrassed or unclear about what options might be available.

This is shown in the images below of universal and inclusive design working together with the stories being free agent circles pushing on either design approach.

So is there an answer here? In the next posts we’ll consider some options.

• Aim for deeper consultation in design 

• Integrate human factors across the design. 

• Use experience to make sure you know your results

• Ask people to consider how to respond as a user

Like most wicked problems, there is much discussion in the design community about the tradeoffs that are made when we aim for good design. What are you prepared to sacrifice and how do you make these decisions is a hard question and one well worth asking.