Inclusive Design: Excluding Users in a Conscious Way

Abstract

In the ‘Inclusive Design’ or ‘Design for all’ approach according to the name one should include all users. Important in this approach is the idea to include a wide diversity of people. So defining your users or target groups is a major step towards ‘Design for all’.

On the other hand excluding people isn't a mortal sin. As long as it is a conscious process. When at the end of the design process it becomes feasible that certain people are excluded then there will be a problem.

P5 developed a method in defining profiles of use in terms of critical users, critical aspects and critical circumstances. Critical users are the starting point to keep in contact with end users during the design process. They can become a kind of hypothetical archetypes used by designers to focus their design on. This approach is used as a communication tool towards the design teams.