Inclusive Design Examples: What It Is and How to Do It

The clearest inclusive design examples are the ones you already use without thinking: the dropped kerb that helps wheelchair users and also parents with pushchairs, delivery couriers with trolleys and anyone dragging a suitcase. Inclusive design means building products so the widest possible range of people can use them, then discovering that designing for the edges usually makes the middle better too. This guide explains what inclusive design actually is, the principles that drive it, and how to put it into practice on a real project rather than treating it as a compliance checkbox.

What inclusive design means

Inclusive design is a method for making products, services and environments usable by as many people as possible, taking account of the full range of human diversity: ability, language, age, culture, situation and more. It is not the same as accessibility, though the two overlap. Accessibility is often about meeting a standard so that people with disabilities can use a finished product. Inclusive design is the upstream mindset that shapes decisions from the start so exclusion is designed out before it is built in.

The practical difference is timing and scope. Accessibility asks, “does this pass?” Inclusive design asks, “who are we leaving out, and what would it take to include them?” Do the second well and the first tends to follow.

The three principles that drive it

Microsoft’s widely used framing sets out three principles that are worth internalising, and you can explore the full method in the Microsoft Inclusive Design toolkit.

Recognise exclusion. Every design decision has the potential to include or exclude someone. Exclusion is not usually deliberate; it happens when we design for people like ourselves and call that “the average user”. Naming who a choice shuts out is the first move.

Learn from diversity. People who are excluded are the best teachers, because they adapt to a world that was not built for them and see mismatches the rest of us miss. Involving them is a source of insight, not a box to tick.

Solve for one, extend to many. Design a good solution for someone with a specific, permanent constraint and you almost always create something that helps far more people in temporary or situational versions of the same constraint.

The persona spectrum: permanent, temporary, situational

The idea that ties those principles together is the persona spectrum. Any human ability sits on a spectrum from permanent to temporary to situational. Take the ability to use both hands. A person with one arm has a permanent constraint. A person with a broken wrist has a temporary one. A new parent holding a baby has a situational one. Design a one-handed interaction that works for the first person and all three benefit, along with anyone carrying shopping or holding a train pole.

This reframing is the quiet power of inclusive design. The population who “need” a feature is always far larger than the group you first designed it for, because temporary and situational versions of every constraint are common and constant.

Inclusive design examples that prove the point

Real cases make the theory concrete, and most started as an accommodation for a few before becoming a benefit for everyone. This is often called the curb cut effect.

• Dropped kerbs (curb cuts). Introduced for wheelchair users, now essential for pushchairs, wheeled luggage and delivery trolleys.
• Captions and subtitles. Built for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers, now used by anyone watching in a noisy cafe, a quiet office or a second language.
• Voice control and dictation. Vital for people who cannot use a keyboard or mouse, and handy for anyone cooking, driving or holding a child.
• Easy-grip tools. The well-known kitchen utensils with thick, cushioned handles began as a design for arthritic hands and became a mainstream bestseller because they are simply more comfortable for everyone.
• High-contrast and dark modes. Created for low vision and light sensitivity, now a default preference for millions using phones in bright sun or late at night.

None of these are charity features. They are examples of solving for one and extending to many, and in most cases they grew the market rather than serving a niche.

How to put inclusive design into practice

You do not need a huge programme to start. You need to change a few habits.

Begin by mapping who your current design excludes. List the abilities your product assumes: perfect vision, steady hands, fast reading, a quiet environment, a fast connection, fluent English. Each assumption is a potential exclusion, and each has a persona spectrum behind it.

Recruit participants who sit at the edges of those spectrums and watch them use your product. Real observation beats guessing every time, which is the whole ethos of a testing culture; see our guide on what user experience is for how this fits into UX work. Then design fixes for the sharpest constraint you found, and check who else the fix helps.

Finally, bake it in rather than bolting it on. Add inclusive checks to your design reviews, write acceptance criteria that name the excluded groups, and treat accessibility standards such as the W3C’s WCAG guidelines as the floor, not the ceiling. Inclusive design is a practice you repeat, not a phase you finish.

Frequently asked questions

What are some good inclusive design examples? Dropped kerbs, video captions, voice control, easy-grip kitchen tools and high-contrast display modes are classic inclusive design examples. Each began as an accommodation for a specific group, such as wheelchair users or people who are deaf, and ended up benefiting a much wider population in temporary or situational versions of the same need. This pattern is known as the curb cut effect.

What is the difference between inclusive design and accessibility? Accessibility usually means making a finished product meet a standard so people with disabilities can use it, often checked near the end. Inclusive design is the upstream mindset that shapes decisions from the start to avoid excluding people in the first place. They overlap heavily: doing inclusive design well tends to produce accessible results, but inclusive design is broader and earlier.

What is the persona spectrum in inclusive design? The persona spectrum describes how any human ability ranges from permanent to temporary to situational. For example, a permanent one-arm constraint, a temporary broken wrist and a situational new parent holding a baby all share a need for one-handed use. Designing for the permanent case usually helps everyone experiencing a temporary or situational version, which vastly increases the number of people who benefit.

How do you start doing inclusive design on a project? Map the abilities your product assumes, such as perfect vision or a quiet environment, and treat each assumption as a possible exclusion. Recruit people at the edges of those spectrums, watch them use your product, and design fixes for the sharpest constraint you find. Then build inclusive checks into design reviews so it becomes a repeated habit rather than a one-off task.

Is inclusive design only about disability? No. Disability is central, but inclusive design covers the full range of human diversity, including language, age, culture, literacy, connection speed and situation. Many exclusions are temporary or situational rather than permanent, which is why inclusive solutions so often help the mainstream and grow a product’s audience rather than serving a narrow niche.