New publication addressing inclusive design as a method and craft now available. A new resource for project design in UX/UI and project design in the digital social sciences and humanities is now available as an open access book chapter published in 2024.

 

Inclusive Design: A Method and Craft published in 2024 by ACRL.

Project design in user experience and project design in the digital social sciences or humanities share many of the same motivating questions. When setting up surveys as part of your research, do you consider the language or purpose of the question? Are there leading questions? Have you considered the background or demographics of your audience? When setting up tasks for user-testing a research project, do you strategize how to recruit users with a diverse approach or just try to get as many as possible? These are just a few of the questions user experience (UX) professionals would consider when creating a digital project. To help address project design, a recently published book chapter explains how to apply user experience design principles to your next design project by using an Inclusive Design Checklist. Though the chapter provides an introduction to the field of UX, an overview of the user-centered design (UCD) phases and applications in UX, an overview of UX research and design phases, and the importance of applying UX to digital projects, this post focuses on an inclusive design checklist that can help root the UX process in digital projects.

Inclusive Design Checklist

The framework for this Inclusive Design Checklist is to help project collaborators create and design for 1) the potential audience of a design project, not just the intended audience, and 2) both the expert user and casual user of the product. Designing with users and addressing this framework will help increase many aspects of inclusion in digital projects. To help stay on track with this framework, consider adapting the checklist below.

This is not an ordered list, rather it is diverse, complex, and iterative in nature. There are two versions, a brief checklist for reference (see below), and an expanded checklist with detailed explanations in the full-text of the chapter.

BRIEF CHECKLIST

• You are not the user

• Avoid bias

• Be mindful

• Prioritize content

• Be consistent

• Offer choice

• Document