Difference Between Accessible Design and Inclusive Design

Accessible design and Inclusive Design are considered quite similar and interchangeable terms by many web designers, While these two terms are quite similar in the output they produce they are two very different concepts. In this article, we will discuss what Accessible design and Inclusive design are and how to differ from one another.

Accessible vs Inclusive Design

Accessible design

Designs that follow accessibility are called Accessible Designs. Accessible Designs are designs that a wide range of audiences can easily use because these designs are simple and they make sure that the users who do not have a lot of context about the website or application can also be able to use it. Accessibility is a design principle that talks about designing products and services in an all-inclusive manner. It means designing for everybody, keeping in mind the people who might have some special needs, and taking care of those needs in the product experience and interface.

For example, you can create a new feature for listening to news in your social media app and improve its accessibility by also providing the transcript in some commonly used languages so that the feature becomes accessible to people with hearing issues.

Inclusive Design

Inclusive design is a series of design methodologies that focuses on two things – first one is understanding and second is enabling people of all backgrounds and abilities to be able to work with the product or service. This also includes accessibility, but it covers a broad spectrum of differences as well, for example age, culture, economic status, education, geographic location, language, among many others.

An example of Inclusive design can be solving the problem statement that many people may fail to register their last names on websites or applications. People may face issues like character limits, etc. One way an inclusive design can solve this problem is by allowing people to report this problem and ask for assistance.

How to create Accessible Designs?

The Three Cs strategy is used by many designers for coming up with accessible designs, these three Cs cover all the necessary accessibility issues with solutions on how a designer can overcome them.

1. Color Contrast:

Ensure accessible color palettes for users with visual impairments. Use tools like Stark for accessibility checks. Also, prioritize conveying crucial information clearly through color choices.

2. Clickable Area Accessibility:

Enhance usability for all users by ensuring easy navigation with keyboard tabbing. Apply hover effects for better mouse tracking, use pressed effects for button feedback, and provide clear labels and instructions.

3. Common Content Accessibility:

Optimize typography by aligning text properly and ensuring adequate line and paragraph spacing. Maintain a responsive layout for accessibility on smaller screens. Aim for left or right alignment, 1.5x font size line spacing, and paragraph widths of no more than 80 characters.

How to create Inclusive Designs?

There is no one size fits all in Inclusive design, enhancing the inclusively of the product may vary from product to product but these three points are useful for almost all products:

1. Perspective Gathering:

Engage with underrepresented user groups to understand the factors such as societal pressures or systemic issues that are acting as obstacles in inclusivity. Identify reasons why they are not your users, which could include social pressures, familial concerns, or systemic barriers.

2. Qualitative Research:

Use qualitative research methods to gain a deeper understanding of your target audience. Start by identifying who might be excluded or have difficulty accessing your services. This helps in building empathy and tailoring designs to meet diverse user needs.

3. Enablement Approach:

Inclusive design is about enablement, not achieving a one-size-fits-all solution. Create multiple pathways for engagement and contribution to accommodate diverse backgrounds and abilities. Sometimes, meeting different user needs requires having more than one design solution.

Accessible vs Inclusive Design

The difference between Accessible design and inclusive design can be best understood by the statement – “So accessibility is a goal, a destination. Inclusive design is how we get to that destination.” Following are more points on difference between Accessible and Inclusive design.

Accessible Design	Inclusive Design
Accessible Designs are designs that can easily be used by a wide range of audiences because these designs are simple and they make sure that the users who do not have a lot of context about the the website or application can also be able to use it.	Inclusive design is a series of design methodologies that focuses on two things – first one is understanding and second is enabling people of all backgrounds and abilities to be able to work with the product or service.
Accessibility is a design principle that means designing products and services in an all-inclusive manner.	Inclusivity also includes accessibility, but it covers a broad spectrum of differences as well, for example age, culture, economic status, education, etc.
The three important principles for Inclusive design are: Color contrast accessibility Clickable area accessibility Common content accessibility	The three important principles of Inclusive design are: Coming up with a group of products/services that covers everyone’s needs. Defining a user group for all these groups of products/services. Coming up with new products/service that will minimize further adaptation
Accessible design has a strictly defined group of people in mind.	Inclusive design strives to cover the diversity of the whole human population. It aims at reducing the difficulty of using the product to a minimum, regardless of user’s current capabilities or situation limitations.
Example: To improve the accessibility of a social media app we can add a new feature to listen to news also providing the transcript in some commonly used languages so that the feature becomes accessible to people with hearing issues.	Example: To enhance the inclusivity of a social media app we can implement customizable font sizes and styles to accommodate users with visual impairments.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed what Accessible design and Inclusive designs are? Along with that we discussed how they differ from one another. Accessible Designs are designs that can easily be used by a wide range of audiences, this basically means that these designs are simple and these designs make sure that the user does not require a lot of context to use the website or application. Inclusive design is a series of design methodologies that focuses on two things – first one is understanding and second is enabling people of all backgrounds and abilities to be able to work with the product or service. We hope that this article helped you improve your knowledge about accessible and inclusive designs and cleared your misconceptions regarding them.