Why Inclusive Design is Good for People and Great for Business / Jess Kessin / Ep. 224

It's just not designed for me...

That thought hits me every time I'm in the kitchen, wrestling, trying to prepare a healthy meal for the family.

Reading recipes six times over, scrambling for ingredients, juggling the chaos of parallel cooking... yeah, it's a mess.

And then, there's my wife, a natural chef, gliding through it all with effortless grace. Watching her is like watching poetry in motion.

This stark contrast reinforces that the kitchen and everything in it feels utterly alien to me.

Now, as a white, middle-aged, English-speaking, physically able male, I'll be the first to admit this feeling of alienation is rare for me when dealing with most products and services. And yes, cooking is a trivial example.

But countless people who face do face this daily in situations far more critical.

Imagine navigating healthcare, financial services, or public services, feeling like they weren't designed for you. Now that's a serious problem.

Unfortunately, this is the reality for more services than we'd maybe like to admit.

Sure, from a service design (and business perspective), it's easy to justify focusing on the majority.

Time and resources are limited, so we design for the "center of the bell curve," the biggest group or the most profitable users. If that means excluding some, well, that's just business, right?

But our guest, Jess Kessin, argues that good design does not exclude.

She proposes an alternative approach: inclusive design that's both effective and cost-efficient. In fact, she insists it pays for itself.

So, how do we bring more inclusive practices into our design process? How do we make the business case? And what are some practical starting points?

We dive into all of that and much more in this episode.

As I've often said on the Show, making our services inclusive is our responsibility as a design community.

Even (especially) when no one is asking, it should be our own professional standard for good design.

Enjoy the conversation, and as always, keep making a positive impact.

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00Welcome to Episode 224

03:30 Meet Jess

05:15 Discussion of D-School

06:30 Barriers to Implementing Inclusive Design

08:30 The Business Case

11:00 Addressing Stakeholder Profit Concerns

13:30 Prototyping Inclusive Design

15:00 Identifying Key Focus Areas

17:00 Living up to design standard

22:00 Engaging "Edge Users"

25:00 Designing for Extreme Users

29:00 Expanding Design to "All" of Humanity

32:00 Community-Driven Design

33:00 Untapped Market Potential

35:30 Misconceptions Among Design Students

41:00 Blind Spots in Design Education

44:30 Learning from Users with Disabilities

45:00 Discovering Insights from Outliers

46:00 Importance of Good Design

49:00 Practical tips for designer

51:30 The Future of Inclusive Design

55:00 AI as a Tool for Inclusive Design

58:00 Taking Leadership in Inclusive Design

1:00:00 Food for Thought

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicazkessin/

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

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