Most programs, software, and services assume that the average customer is actually average. As humans, we know better. The next customer to log into your website or walk through your door could be a man or a woman, tall or short, pale or dark, athletic or unwell. There’s as good a chance they will be somewhere on the edge of the local bell-curve as there is that they’ll be in the centre.

There’s a good chance that the next person you talk to won’t necessarily celebrate the winter solstice with a tree and stockings. They might be colourblind, work the night shift, or be unable to metabolise milk. The average customer is almost never perfectly average, so why do designs assume that they are? Inclusive UI and UX design is sweeping the business and software world as personalisation and big-data has finally – mathematically – revealed that every single customer has at least one “not-average” thing about them.

What Is Inclusive UI & UX?

Many brand marketing companies are now starting to speak to their clients about Inclusive UI (User Interface) and UX (User Experience); a more inclusive way of approaching software design. Inclusivity takes into account every user who might not be the mathematical average. Corporations and their best practices have recently discovered what most of us have known all along – that most people don’t fit into a perfect mould.  Inclusivity acknowledges that not all users are medically-able Caucasians who work the 9-5 weekday shift. It’s including a spectrum of skin tones in default avatars and emojis. It’s letting your users pick their language and time zone. And it’s scheduling apps that don’t assume your breakfast is between 5 AM and 9 AM, and software that doesn’t assume you’ll be asleep for the 3 AM update.

Inclusive UI & UX strives to create software, programs, services, and user interfaces that naturally accommodate the ways that everyone is different without relying on core assumptions about identity, beliefs, culture, location, ability, or preferenc