Inclusive design isn’t about adding extra features at the end. It’s about noticing where things break for people and treating that as part of the design work, not an edge case.
A useful starting point is asking: Who would struggle to use this right now? Not in theory, but in practice—where does the flow get awkward, confusing, or just unusable for someone who doesn’t interact the way you do?
Some useful checks:
- Can someone use this without a mouse, just a keyboard?
- Is this readable at a glance, even in poor lighting or without relying on color?
- Does this still work smoothly on a slow connection or a small screen?
- Are the instructions or labels clear without needing extra context?
Asking these questions early helps you design around real constraints. Fixing something for one group usually ends up improving the experience for everyone else too.
Over time, the shift is simple: you stop designing for yourself and start noticing where others might get stuck. That’s what leads to interfaces that feel easier to use in all kinds of situations.
To explore this topic further, see Kat Holmes's Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design (MIT Press, 2018), a foundational text on inclusive design thinking.