Today in class, we talked about the theme of inclusive design and accessibility.

Before Taking this class, I was very confused about the differences between inclusive and accessible design. After taking the class, reading some of the articles provided by the teacher and doing my own online research; I gained a better understanding of the 2 different concepts.

I found an article by UX Collective that explains the concepts very well ;

A beginner’s guide to inclusive UX design

Inclusive design commits to learning about the product's users so that products not only achieve business objectives but also respect the desires and demands of its large range of consumers from varying backgrounds. Inclusive UX design considers all aspects of relevant social identity, such as disability, race/ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, language, and so on. The emphasis is on meeting as many users’ needs as feasible, rather than simply as many users as possible.

On the other hand, accessibility in UX has a narrower scope than inclusive design because it focuses on accommodating people with disabilities. When thinking about accessibility, designers need to take care to reduce barriers to information and functions so that they may be accessed regardless of one's permanent or temporary limitations in certain areas such as hearing, movement, vision, speech, and cognition.

Since disability is only one aspect of social identity, accessibility, therefore, is one aspect of inclusive design. When discussing only accessibility, we should use the term accessible design rather than inclusive design. A product might be accessible ( consider the disability aspect of social identity) while still failing to consider other social identities such as age and sex etc.

In class, My teacher Paul showed us a great video by FranklinCovey;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9I4jWLEPzg&ab_channel=FranklinCoveyMiddleEast

The video taught us about unconscious basis; unconscious biases are social stereotypes that lead to preconceived notions regarding certain groups of people formed by individuals outside of their conscious knowledge.

After watching the clip, I was thinking about how we can sometimes put people into boxes. We have those we admire, those we avoid, and those we are not sure about etc. The video has shown me that we often unconsciously perceive others whom we are not familiar with from a very one-dimensional perceptive, and that if we get to know them better, then we will find that we have far more in common with each other than we initially thought. However, as my teacher has said, exclusion happens when we solve problems in UX using our own biases, when we forget to consider our design for those who are “different” from us.

Beyond how we might perceive each other, we all are very complex beings that share the same universal human experience; therefore, inclusive and accessible design is important because without properly considering their complications, you could leave certain users with alienating experiences. I would also think that by learning to incorporate inclusivity and accessibility into our design, we are also developing our empathy skills as UX designers when considering how to make people feel like they all belong; regardless of their social identities.