“Inclusive design” may sound like vague, trendy, technical jargon. But inclusive design isn’t a trend — it’s the world catching up on the kind of digital experiences that should have been part of the web from the beginning.

Inclusive design is a crucial part of nearly every digital platform, be it website, app, or intranet.

Inclusive design as a concept and practice is broad and deep — this article barely scratches the surface, but will help you understand the mindset required. We’ll cover what it is, why it matters for your business, and some ways to assess whether your digital platform could be more inclusive.

1. What does “inclusive design” mean?
2. What are the benefits of inclusive design?
3. How are inclusive design and accessibility different?
4. How can you make your platform more inclusive?

What does “inclusive design” mean?

The Inclusive Design Research Center defines inclusive design as “design that considers the full range of human diversity with respect to ability, language, culture, gender, age and other forms of human difference.” Adding to that, Nielsen Norman calls it creating products that “understand and enable people of all backgrounds and abilities,” including economic situation, geography, race, and more.

Essentially, you’re aspiring to create interfaces that reflect how people from all walks of life interact with the world.

Inclusive design allows people to use a digital platform with ease, whatever their needs or point of view. Looking at characteristics like race, abilities, or geography helps us identify key areas where friction can occur between humans and the web.

In the end, it’s about designing for everyone.

What are the benefits of inclusive design?

Inclusive design isn’t just about recognizing and accommodating diversity; it also creates business advantages for organizations that are willing to invest in an inclusive approach. Here are a few key areas where inclusive design can give your digital platform an edge:

Grow your customer base. By understanding the best way to connect with a wider target audience, your team can create digital experiences that attract the most possible users.

Increase user engagement. Engagement goes up when platforms are welcoming and easy to use. Inclusive web design removes barriers and creates motivation for people to engage with your brand.

Spark innovation. Inclusive solutions have a history of spawning innovation that goes beyond the initial intended audience (think closed-captioning-turned-subtitles on Netflix). Sometimes, when you aim to solve a specific usability issue, you end up creating an entirely new market solution.

Motivate your team. The way a digital platform is designed affects all audiences, even employees. Designing with inclusivity in mind can also have a positive influence on your own team. Engaging employees in your efforts to build an inclusive digital platform can help create a sense of shared purpose — one many people are likely to rally around.

How are inclusive design and accessibility different?

You may have heard these terms used in similar contexts. While they overlap in meaning, they’re not the same thing.

By definition, accessibility focuses on accommodating people with varying physical and mental abilities. Accessible websites are measured by their conformance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which pertain to things like auditory, cognitive, physical, and visual disabilities. Accessibility tests typically cover code-level issues that can be fixed in the source code of a site.

Inclusive design is about accommodating the entire spectrum of human diversity. It involves a variety of viewpoints, including those of people with disabilities. Inclusive solutions can involve anything from back-end coding to the way headlines are worded.

In a nutshell: An accessible site is one of the outcomes of an inclusive design, whereas inclusive design is the overall approach to creating accessibility.

Consider these examples:

• You’re filling out a form, and because you have a visual impairment, you’re using the keyboard to move through it. When you get to the end, you discover the form can’t be submitted because you left a few areas blank — even though you filled out every question asked. Turns out the keyboard had skipped past a few required fields. What a pain!
• While filling out a form, you’re asked to select your ethnicity from a list. As you read the options, you discover that yours is not listed, or that you identify with more than one. You feel like the “other,” compared to everyone else, leaving you frustrated about the task and… maybe even about the company too.

While both issues are addressed by inclusive design, the first issue relates to ability and can be fixed within the code, while the second relates to diversity and will take additional measures to address.

How Can You Make Your Platform More Inclusive?

The ethnicity example raises some interesting questions, such as:

• How do you know which ethnicities to add?
• How many do you need to account for?
• Should you just change the way the question is worded?
• Do you need to ask the question at all?

Mainly, this raises a bigger question: how do you maintain an inclusive site when there are so many important and broad variables (ability, language, culture, gender, age, etc.) — especially when that list of variables continues to grow and change?

The best way to get started is to arm yourself with knowledge and create a plan.

1. Identify the problems to solve.

Start by identifying opportunities for improvement in your current user experience (UX) by collecting quantitative and qualitative research with tools like UX audits, user interviews, user recordings, and heatmaps. Keep an eye out for areas where users seem confused, backpedal, or struggle to complete tasks. The more information you gather, the better!

2. Determine the best solutions.

Your user research will likely uncover many possible paths to change. This may include adding more categories to a list, creating an “Other” field users can type any answer into, or adding options to gather additional information.

Note: It’s common for areas that need improvement to hit on sensitive topics, things you may not fully figure out through data and research. Remember that the goal is understanding. Don’t be afraid to reach out to others for their thoughts and opinions.

3. Measure the results.

Some measures of success are easy to determine from user data in Google Analytics or changes in heatmaps and user recordings. Further data can come from users via surveys asking how your audience feels about the changes. The key is to stay continuously informed and aware of what your users are experiencing.

Note: One helpful tool for checking whether your design is, in fact, inclusive is Cards for Humanity. It offers a fun way to make sure you’re not missing anyone or anything in the spectrum of inclusivity.

Remember that the process of creating an inclusive design doesn’t end with implementation. Inclusive design is a work in progress. As a field, inclusive design is always evolving and requires continuous research to develop best practices.

We can’t predict what kind of mismatched interactions users will face in the years to come. But, with an open mind and a desire to learn and grow, we can continually adapt to meet them.

We’ve only scratched the surface of inclusive design! If you have any questions about inclusive design, we’d love to chat. Contact us anytime.

THE BRIEF

THE CHALLENGE

MULTIPLE COUNTRIES AND A GLOBAL OPTION

SIX LANGUAGES

MANY 3RD-PARTY INTEGRATIONS

THE APPROACH

LEARN VS. SHOP

Supporting Visitor Intention with Two Different Modes

While the technical challenges were being worked out, the user experience and design had to reflect a cutting-edge company. With the launch of their revolutionary product, the BLK 360, in 2018, Leica positioned itself as the Apple of the geospatial measurement community — sleek, cool, cutting-edge and easy to use. While many companies want to look as good as Apple, few of them actually have the content and product to back it up.

The navigation for the site went through many rounds of feedback and testing before deciding on something radically simple — Learn or Shop. A customer on the website is either in an exploratory state of mind — browsing, comparing, reviewing pricing and specifications — or they are ready to buy. We made it very clear which part of the website was for which.

This allowed us to talk directly to the customer in two very different ways. On the Learn side, the pages educate and convince. They give the customer information about the product, reviews, articles, sample data files, and the like. The content is big, sleek, and leverages video and other embedded content, like VR, to educate.

On the Shop side the pages are unapologetically transactional. Give the visitor the right information to support a purchase, clearly deliver specs and options like software and warranties, without any marketing. We could assume the customer was here to purchase, not to be convinced, so the page content could concentrate on order completion. The entire checkout process was simplified as much as possible to reduce friction. Buying habits and patterns of their user base over the past few site iterations were studied to inform our choices about where to simplify and where to offer options.

THE RESULTS

THE BRIEF

THE APPROACH

THE RESULTS

THE BRIEF

Comprehensive Platform Assessment

THE RESULTS

Personalized Online Learning Experience

Enrollment and Administration Portal

Administrators and instructors leverage an enrollment portal to manage the onboarding of new students and view progress on coursework and certifications.

Course Material Delivery

Students experience the course material through a combination of reading, video, and offline coursework downloads for completion and submission.

Learning Assessments & Grading

Students are tested with online assessments, where grading and suggestions are delivered in real time, and submission of offline assignments for review by instructors.

Progress Pathways

A personalized student dashboard is the window into progress, allowing students to see which courses have been started, how much is left to complete, and the status of their certifications.

Certification

Completed coursework and assessments lead students to a point of certification resulting in a printable Certificate of Completion.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Faster and More Secure than Ever Before

Why Drupal?

Not long ago, company intranets were little more than a repository for shared files, general announcements, and the all-important list of holiday office closures. Today, the humble intranet has evolved as a way to enhance internal communication and employee engagement and to help workers do their jobs.

While organizations tend to have more content- and feature-rich intranets these days, many are missing one crucial element: a mobile-optimized version. As a result, they can exclude a large proportion of workers—including the 80% of people who make up today’s Deskless Workforce.

Top “deskless” industries include education, healthcare, retail, hospitality, and transportation, employing many of the frontline workers we all depend on.

One of our own clients, a large hospital system, told us that 70% of their workforce doesn’t sit at a desk, nor do they use a computer every day. And if 70% of their employees can’t easily access the company intranet, they’re not provided equitable access to the same resources as everyone else.

Why Mobile Matters Today

In addition to the challenges of communicating with deskless workers, the rise of remote work and the growing number of Millennials in the workforce are helping to drive an increased demand for mobile-optimized or employee-app versions of intranets.

Consider this: the average American spends more than 5 hours a day on their phone (and it’s almost always within reach). In addition, nearly half of smartphone users access the internet primarily on their phones versus a desktop computer, laptop, or tablet. Those numbers are even higher for Millennials, who currently make up 35% of the US workforce.

Mobile communication plays an essential role in our personal lives. To serve employees, company intranets must offer the same ease-of-use, convenience, and capability to our work lives. The intranet must go beyond the desktop box to where workers are.

The Benefits of an Inclusive Intranet

In addition to facilitating access, mobile technology offers a number of unique benefits that can significantly improve employee engagement and productivity and help reduce frustration.

Here are some of the key benefits of a mobile-optimized intranet:

Real-Time Push Notifications

Imagine there’s an emergency situation in your facility, or an important update that staff need to receive immediately. You can push the information straight to their phone, enabling real-time communication across your workforce. Unlike emails, most push notifications get read within the first 3 minutes after they’re received.

Broader Access for BYOD

As more and more organizations support remote work and flexible schedules—while fewer and fewer provide company smartphones—the “Bring Your Own Device” trend has become more prevalent. Many of today’s employees are using personal devices to access work-related resources and systems. And, as we noted earlier, most of the time that means they’re using a smartphone.

Freedom from Workstations

In some organizations, employees are still sharing desktop workstations that we might charitably describe as “clunky.” It’s inefficient and inconvenient, especially when multiple people have to go out of their way to get to a workspace. A mobile-optimized intranet gives everyone fast and easy access to the same resources, wherever they are.

Two-Way Communication

Intranets have traditionally been top-down communication platforms, focusing primarily on the needs of employers, not employees. Today, companies looking to increase engagement have shifted to a new mindset: communication tools are no longer for talking to employees, but talking with them.

Mobile-optimized platforms and mobile apps help facilitate two-way conversations, especially with features like built-in chatting or social forums where employees can like and comment on posts. This allows companies to have more personalized conversations with employees in addition to collecting valuable, on-the-spot feedback from the front lines.

Remote Doesn’t Feel So Remote

Without regular in-person interaction, remote workers often feel isolated and less engaged. By offering more of an app-like experience with ongoing communication, an intranet can help recreate an environment that fosters idea sharing and boosts morale. It also means that employees who work at home, or don’t have access to a computer, won’t feel uninformed and isolated from the rest of the team.

Better User Experience

If you’re looking to use your intranet as a tool for engagement, you’ll get the best results from an employee app. An app lets you take advantage of mobile-native tools, like location detection and offline access, which let you both customize content and make it more readily available. The improved user experience, speed, and features are the reasons why most people prefer apps to websites.

An Intranet for Everyone

Like many organizations, the purpose of your intranet might be to create a more engaged workforce or improve employee productivity. But if most of your workers either can’t or don’t access the content, you’re not going to achieve your goals.

As cultures, companies, and industries move towards creating more inclusiveness and equity, organizations across the world are looking for ways to meet the needs of their employees. One way to address your team’s needs and expectations is to start by ensuring your internal resources are truly benefiting everyone who relies on them.

In 2023, Oomph’s design for the Lifespan Intranet was selected by the Nielsen Norman Group as one of the Ten Best Intranets globally.

THE BRIEF

THE APPROACH

While storytelling formed the heart of the Wingspans platform, the site’s interactive features would be crucial for getting students to explore and engage with the content. Building on Lindsay’s familiarity with the educational market, we mapped out the content architecture, workflows, and functions for a host of interactive features to keep students engaged.

For the tech stack, we turned to a mix of microservices to provide a stable, flexible, and scalable architecture with lightning-fast performance. These included a Gatsby front end, Firebase database, AWS cloud storage, Algolia site search, Cosmic JS content management system, and more. We also worked to ensure the technology reflected Lindsay’s empathy-driven approach. For instance, we customized Algolia to deliver search results specifically tailored to a student’s profile and interests—in other words, an encyclopedia that understood its users and presented its information in a distinctly human way.

THE RESULTS

THE BRIEF

The RISD Museum publishes a document for every exhibition in the museum. Most of them are scholarly essays about the historical context around a body of work. Some of them are interviews with the artist or a peek into the process behind the art. Until very recently, they have not had a web component.

The time, energy, and investment in creating a print publication was becoming unsustainable. The limitations of the printed page in a media-driven culture are a large drawback as well. For the last printed exhibition publication, the Museum created a one-off web experience — but that was not scalable.

The Museum was ready for a modern publishing platform that could be a visually-driven experience, not one that would require coding knowledge. They needed an authoring tool that emphasized time-based media — audio and video — to immediately set it apart from printed publications of their past. They needed a visual framework that could scale and produce a publication with 4 objects or one with 400.

THE APPROACH

A Flexible Design System

RAPID RESPONSE

An Unexpected Solution to a New Problem