Is Inclusion the Goal?
Most of us are taught from a young age to include: include your class in your foursquare game (the sidewalk chalk version, not the app), don't invite someone to your birthday party unless you can include everyone. But, what does inclusion really look like? I think it's a lot more than extending an invitation. I mean, there's a big difference between being included in a meeting and getting asked your opinion, is there not?
Inclusion, most would agree, is better than exclusion. Outside of my workplace discussions of PowerPoint master templates, I would almost always choose inclusion. Yet, if I could imagine how I wished to participate, I would hope for partnership, impartiality, and collaboration. At their root, inclusion must be present for all of those to exist. You can't have a partnership if you were never included. Yet, a partnership offers a much more rich experience than inclusion.
Illustration outlining how designing for one specific user (ex: non-verbal) can end up affecting multiple other demographics (ex: heavy accent) (Holmes, 2018).
The pattern of exclusion
For those with disabilities, exclusion is far too frequently the norm. And yet, when inclusion is granted, is it often accompanied by biases and division. Is the meager definition of inclusion the goal? Do we simply want people to be granted access to our technology? Or do we want to use technology to bridge gaps and extend and offer people participation, creating diverse and robust communities as a result?
I think when people hear "digital accessibility," they immediately think of connotations of inclusion that haunt us from childhood. They hear, "make sure you don't leave out the kid that's mean to you and invite them to your birthday party." I don't think I'm alone in saying that when I ask at work, "can we design an accessible solution?", I am met with eye rolls and excuses of timelines and bandwidth. I get it. I really do.
“An exclusion habit is the belief that whoever starts the game also sets the rules of the game. We think we don’t have power to change a game, so we abdicate our accountability. We keep repeating the same behaviors, over and over.”
We discuss accessibility as a checklist of WCAG requirements and design limitations. We discuss accessibility as if the only people who benefit from are the most extreme use cases. We brush off an entire audience with analytics and statistics, forgetting that digital accessibility creates solutions for more people than those with the most limited abilities. No wonder the word "accessibility" doesn't cause an inspiration to spark within designers and developers. It took years for me to view accessible accommodations as more than a QA checklist item, and now, I'm the weird coworker that loves to talk accessibility. I think I'm okay with that.
Abhishek Singh demonstrating his modification to an Amazon Alexa that would allow a user to use sign language towards a camera and have a virtual assistant respond (Vincent, 2018).
Emerging technologies offer solutions
I believe designing and building technology can be used for far grander things than our poor connotations of inclusion suggest. I keep circling back to the question: how can technology bridge humans' abilities to create holistic experiences for our increasingly diverse world?
Many wonderful writers have come before me advocating for this word: inclusion. Kat Holmes' book changed my life, and I don't say that lightly. The writings of Laura Kalbag, Heydon Pickering, Sarah Horton, and Whitney Quesenbery have radically shaped my design and accessibility outlook. I am a more empathetic person because of them, and my work as a designer has improved as a result. I am not saying they are incorrect in their findings or that their eloquent points are negated by my opinions. Their research and insight are desperately needed in our world of instant gratification and shortcut thinking. I am honored to have even listed their names in this article.
What I am humbly suggesting, however, is that technology can do far more than include. Maybe we, as the humans shaping the future of technology, must explore what a technology solution providing partnership would look like. I don't know about you, but equality is a lot more than being offered a seat at the right table, but it's undoubtedly a wonderful place to start.
MH