Framing product and service through an inclusive lens
The success of an inclusive design practice lies in acknowledging the vital role intersectionality plays in understanding diverse audiences and discerning how to serve them.
Users are complex. Each person’s identity comprises numerous permanent, temporary, and situational human, technological, and sociological factors. As a result, no two users are alike, even if they have similar attributes that align them to specific groups like race, gender, or sexual orientation.
For consideration
For example, two young individuals who identify as Black women may experience anxiety.
The familial generational trauma of slavery and poverty may drive one woman’s anxiety, while the other woman’s anxiety could stem from the trauma of her family’s disapproval of her sexual orientation.
While they both identify as young Black women with anxiety, the solutions they need to address their mental health issues will differ based on their intersectional factors and which of those may most critically influence their anxiety.
Hyper-customization to address complex user requirements becomes challenging at the product level because one user's needs may not scale to suit others.
Customized service delivery also becomes more difficult to streamline as a result.
Organizations often fall into the trap of creating demographic-driven profiles and archetypes to funnel users into service lanes that only apply to a segment of users based only on a limited set of intersectional factors.
For example, providing a version of care strictly for LGBTQ+ employees that assumes all LGBTQ+ employees have the same lens, beliefs, and perspectives related to mental health and other behavioural and sociological factors, while also intentionally segmenting this community into a subset of care when more service-based care could be advantageous despite not being strictly formulated for this community group.
Instead, focusing on service-need archetypes as the primary lens of segmentation ahead of considering human, technological, and sociological factors provides an initial foundation of care that can be thoughtfully expanded and curated for the diverse employees who make up the overall audience.
For consideration
The approach of providing a more targeted and personalized service by serving an average, demographic-led subset of users is flawed.
User needs don't follow clear demographic lines.