Every digital product excludes someone. The question is not whether he excludes, but who he excludes, and whether this exclusion was a conscious choice or an oversight. In most cases, it is carelessness.
The team projects for itself: young, with good vision, a new cell phone, fast internet and digital fluency. The result works perfectly for people similar to those who built it, and creates invisible barriers for everyone else. Elderly people, people with disabilities, people using input devices, those who have little familiarity with technology.
This text is an introduction to inclusive design for anyone who wants to understand the concept before applying it. Not as an abstract moral obligation, but as a design discipline that makes better products for everyone.
What is inclusive design
Inclusive design is designing considering the real diversity of the people who will use the product, their different capabilities, contexts, devices and levels of familiarity. It's the opposite of designing for an "average user" who doesn't actually exist.
It is worth distinguishing from accessibility, with which it is often confused. Accessibility is largely about ensuring that people with disabilities are able to use the product, often guided by technical standards such as WCAG. Inclusive design is broader: it is the mindset of not excluding anyone through carelessness, of which accessibility is an essential part.
There's a powerful idea behind this: by designing for those who struggle the most, you improve the experience for everyone. The video subtitles, created for the deaf, are also useful for those on the bus without headphones. The ramp, made for wheelchair users, serves the delivery person with a cart. Inclusion done well spills over into general benefit.
Why this matters
In Brazil, the argument is especially strong. A huge portion of the population accesses the internet only via cell phone, often on modest devices, with limited data plans and an unstable connection. Designing as if everyone has fiber optics and the latest iPhone is excluding the majority.
Add to this the diversity of age and digital literacy. Services that serve a broad audience, and all public services do, need to work for those who have never used an app before. A design that presupposes familiarity excludes those who most depend on the service.
There is also the legal and ethical dimension. Digital accessibility is a growing requirement, supported by Brazilian legislation for the inclusion of people with disabilities. And for the public sector, ensuring that citizens can access a service is not a difference, it is a duty. A digital service that excludes part of the population fails in its basic mission.
The fundamentals that support the practice
Diversity is not an exception
The first fundamental is mental: stop treating people with different needs as "special cases" at the end of the line. Diversity is the rule of the population, not the exception. When the project starts considering variety, inclusion becomes part of the structure, not a patch at the end.
Contrast, size and clarity
Too small text, poor contrast between font and background, tiny touch areas: these are the most common and easiest barriers to avoid. Good contrast helps those with low vision and also those who use their cell phones in the strong sun. Legible handwriting serves the elderly and those in a hurry.
Do not depend on a single sense
Information transmitted only by color excludes those with color blindness. Just by sound, it excludes those who are deaf or silent. The foundation is redundancy: communicating through multiple channels, so that no one is left out because they depend on a specific meaning.
Simple language
Fancy text, technical jargon and confusing instructions exclude people due to cognitive barriers. Clear language is inclusive design, it benefits those with low literacy, those in a hurry and those who are tired. In the public service, "legalese" is one of the biggest barriers to inclusion that exist.
Work on real device
Designing and testing on modest hardware, with poor connection, is the basis for inclusion in Brazil. A heavy app that only runs on expensive cell phones excludes people through the back door, even if it meets all the accessibility checklists.
Work with assistive technology
Many people navigate apps and websites using screen readers, which describe the content on the screen aloud. For this to work, each image needs a text description, each button needs a clear label, and the reading order needs to make sense. An app full of icons without description is, for a blind user, a blank canvas.
The foundation here is that the interface has two layers: the visual, which most people see, and the structural, which assistive technology reads. Designing inclusively means taking care of both. Standards like WCAG exist precisely to guide this work objectively, transforming “being accessible” into verifiable criteria rather than vague good intentions.
The business benefit that often goes unnoticed
There is an inclusion argument that goes beyond the ethical and legal: the market argument. A product that excludes part of the population also excludes part of potential customers or users. In aggregate, this is lost reach, people who would try to use, or buy, and give up due to an avoidable barrier.
Add the effect on support and reputation. Confusing products for those with low familiarity generate more doubts, more calls and more public frustration. When clarity and inclusivity go up, these costs go down. Inclusion done well is not a cost center; It often pays for itself in increased reach and reduced friction.
In the public sector, the calculation is even more straightforward. Each citizen who is unable to use the digital service returns to the in-person queue, which costs the State dearly. Digital inclusion, in this case, is public efficiency, in addition to being a right. Excluding through the back door of design is pushing costs back to the ticket counter.
The mistake of those who are starting
The most common misconception is to treat inclusion as a final compliance step, running a tool, checking items off a list, and declaring the product “accessible.” True inclusion is not a checklist; It is a decision made from the beginning of the project.
Adding accessibility at the end is expensive, incomplete, and frustrating. Thinking about inclusion from the beginning is cheap and natural. The difference is when you ask yourself the question “who might this be excluding?”
The second mistake is never testing with real, diverse people. The team assumes everything is clear because it is clear to them. But just observing an elderly person, a person with a disability or someone with low literacy using the product reveals the invisible barriers. Without this observation, inclusion remains in the field of good intentions.
Including is designing with honesty
Inclusive design, at its core, is a form of honesty. It's admitting that your user isn't like you, that the population is diverse, and designing for that reality rather than a convenient fantasy.
It is not charity or favor. It is project competence. Inclusive products reach more people, generate less support, avoid legal risk and, almost always, are better for all users, including those who had no apparent difficulties.
For those leading technology, especially in the public sector, the right question is not "is the product accessible?" but "who am I still leaving out, and was this a conscious choice?" Asking this question early and often is the foundation of everything.
If you're starting to think about inclusivity in your product, the best first step is simple: put it in the hands of someone very different from you and watch. There are other articles here about accessibility and UX that delve deeper into the topic, and I'm available to talk about how to apply these fundamentals to your context.