
Inclusive Design, as the name suggests, is a design process designers follow to create products that help people of all backgrounds, i.e., including everyone. It addresses methods to build products that focus on fulfilling user needs.
Now, you might wonder if this is just a fancy definition for accessibility, but why choose another term? But here is the catch. The inclusive design considers the full range of human diversity with a variety of abilities and other forms of human difference, not just designing the features and capabilities of the system.
What is Inclusive Design?
Inclusive Design is a design methodology which encompasses the full range of human diversity with different abilities, languages, cultures and backgrounds. It helps designers to design a product that serves as many people as possible, addressing factors which focus on fulfilling user needs. The core idea of inclusive design is to empathise with users. It makes it easier to understand the context in which a user uses a product.
There is a really good example of Inclusive Design from Microsoft.
Recently, Microsoft announced a suite of accessories which can be used by people with physical disabilities to access technology. Each person can create their ideal setup, increase productivity and use their products more effectively. It empowers people who have difficulty using a traditional mouse and keyboard.

Now, coming to the former part — why and how inclusive design is different from accessibility?
Well, there are 3 reasons I would like to mention and strongly believe would clear up your confusion as well.
What makes it different from accessibility?
Both terms are often used interchangeably but now you might have an idea of how different it is. Let us now break them up for you.
Firstly, inclusive design is a set of methodologies followed by designers to reduce barriers between humans and technologies. Unlike accessibility which focuses on accessing different parts of an interface under different conditions. Accessibility, in a sense, has a narrower approach than inclusive design. As mentioned by the NN Group, Accessibility is only a bare minimum for meaningful experiences for individuals with disabilities.
Secondly, accessibility aims to create an experience that can be followed up to the greatest extent by all people. It focuses on the result of a design. The primary goal of accessibility is to ensure that every user can complete a task and benefit from the product. In contrast, inclusive design aims to focus on creating a finer approach taking up on a design, rather than focusing on the outcome. Like in the example of Microsoft accessible products.
And lastly, accessibility provides a single solution to a specific problem set. It imposes a single solution to the many answers that came up, without many adaptations. On the other hand, Inclusive Design accepts multiple design solutions to embrace the divergence of human potential.
Why is Inclusive Design important?
When you understand who your users are and how differently they think, you pull different strings to catch up to their beautiful experiences. Inclusive Design tends to align diverse users based on the functionality of the design.
The most important aspect that this brings to the table is it enhances the user experience for enlarged communities. It puts people first by respecting how they would like to communicate, present and address the functionality of the design. The inclusive design does not only make the user experience good but also caters to one’s individuality and abilities.
While it is recommended for every designer to design a product with inclusive design patterns, it is not always possible. Designing an inclusive product is an iterative process and takes time to achieve a level of understanding. A designer must examine the product from a different perspective to avoid unnecessary inclusion which, at times, might be shading the core value of Inclusive Design.
David Fusilier, Associate Principal Product Designer at Spotify mentions, “For designers, it’s very important to integrate inclusivity into earlier phases of the design process. If they save it for the end, they may end up retrofitting a fundamentally inaccessible design.”
Conclusion
Inclusive design is different as seen by different people. What might be interesting to you, cannot be the same to another person. You must keep designing solutions for the underrepresented users which benefit everyone. And empathy brings out its right hand in doing so. Before creating a product, think of inclusive design as an upper hand to provide a much-enhanced user experience.
How do you think you can include inclusion in your designs? Let us know in the comments.