Inclusive design

In the 1950s, Europe, Japan, and the United States began to move towards "barrier-free design", which sought to remove obstacles in built environments for people with physical disabilities.

By the 1970s, the emergence of accessible design began to move past the idea of building solutions specifically for individuals with disabilities towards normalization and integration.

In 1973, the United States passed the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in programs conducted by federal agencies, a crucial step towards recognizing that accessible design was a condition for supporting people's civil rights.

[8] Coleman also published the first reference to the term in 1994 with The Case for Inclusive Design, a presentation at the 12th Triennial Congress of the International Ergonomics Association.

[6] Around this time, Selwyn Goldsmith (in the UK) and Ronald 'Ron' Mace (in the US), two architects who had both survived polio and were wheelchair users, advocated for an expanded view of design for everyone.

[6] In 1998, the United States amended Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act to include inclusivity requirements for the design of information and technology.

[12] Rather than treating accessible and inclusive design as a product of compliance to legal requirements, the showcase positioned disability as a source of innovation.

As a result, it is limited in scope and often focuses on specific accommodations to ensure that people with disabilities have access to products, services, or environments.

In contrast, inclusive design considers the needs of a wider range of potential users, including those with capability impairments that may not be legally recognized as disabilities.

They advocate for the following steps:[19] For Adobe, the inclusive design process begins with identification of situations where people are excluded from using a product.