Design for all: How embracing design variations can make your product more inclusive

A guide on digital accessibility that explains the fundamental difference between Universal and Inclusive design when pursuing “Design for all”.

Universal design and Inclusive design describe two methodologies that aim to create products that can be accessed and used by people of all backgrounds and abilities. The two terms are often used interchangeably. Although they are closely related, however, there is a key difference between how the two concepts approach the goal of “Design for all”.

Universal design: the strive for a single solution

Universal design aims to create products that can be accessed and used by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without adaptation or specialised design. The goal is to arrive at a single design solution; one experience for all.

This approach is often suitable for the design of physical products and spaces where creating multiple variations would introduce significant cost.

Inclusive design for digital products

For digital products, the overhead introduced by having multiple functional variations can be relatively low. To practice inclusive design is to acknowledge and embrace the idea that meeting different user needs can sometimes require multiple variations of a design.

This is not to say that one approach should always be followed in favour of the other. Core design principles still apply here; design decisions should focus on fulfilling the needs of the user. If a single design can’t meet all the user needs, then it’s time to explore variations. How do we judge whether a design meets all the user needs? We test. We test with a diverse range of people who have those needs.

Design variations don’t have to be large, either; simply providing multiple navigation pathways or providing access to actions in multiple places can go a long way to support different users’ mental models and preferences.

An everyday example – how do you copy and paste?

Copy and paste is a function used every day by almost anyone whose job involves working on a computer. Most software will provide several different ways for users to do this. Typically, at least 3:

Some products even have a dedicated ‘Duplicate’ function. This can also often be accessed either in the toolbar menu, the context menu or by using a keyboard shortcut.

Yet another way—and my own personal preference—is to hold down the Alt key and then click-and-drag the object to duplicate it. This is often a feature of products that involve working on a canvas, such as a design tool or whiteboarding tool, or products for creating a slide deck.

That’s as many as seven different ways to achieve the same outcome. This may seem excessive, or even wasteful, but within these options different needs are being met:

Summary

Being inclusive in our designs doesn’t require the creation of a single perfect solution. To achieve inclusivity is to enable different ways for people to equally perceive, understand, navigate and interact with products and services. Sometimes, the best option is multiple options.