One of the most common ways to approach product and service objectives is to create personas and conduct research based on 'average' target users. But this approach falls apart when you consider that every person has a variety of shifting needs, identities, and contexts of use.

In my talk, "There is no average person. Why it's critical to design with intersectionality in mind", I highlight the research behind prioritizing individuals over averages and how inclusive research practices can grow the impact of your work. 

You'll leave the talk with an improved understanding of markets, new approaches to opening up market access, insights on how to deliver products and services that better serve increasingly diverse markets, and an understanding of the ROI of inclusive design practices.

Interested in bringing this talk to your organization?

Hi, I’m Lee. And I’d like to tell you about my talk, “There is no average person. Why it’s critical to design with intersectionality in mind.”

My motivation behind the talk stems from a sweeping, industry-wide problem we need to address.

Looking at websites alone as a lens, we can see that well over 90% of websites do not meet basic accessibility objectives. And accessibility is only part of the story.

The result of our industry’s collective inability to deliver products and services for all means that 90% of websites actively limit access, usability, and content engagement.

This industry-wide problem doesn’t begin and end with websites. It’s a part of how we work in developing any products or services.

We design for the average and avoid the edge cases.

My talk highlights the flawed methodologies and the real data that shows there is no average to target or edge case customer to avoid.

You’ll have the evidence you need to bring this discussion back to your team members.

With practical considerations around customer markets and segmentation, product and service planning, and the ROI of inclusive design.

That way, you’ll be able to turn discussions from “why would we invest in serving edge cases” to “why aren’t we serving our whole market.”

In my talk, I highlight the research behind prioritizing individuals over averages and how inclusive research practices can grow the impact of your work. 

Understanding why it's critical to design products and services with intersectionality in mind

Let’s explore in this video the three main ways the accessibility and inclusion landscape has advanced over the last three decades, and why we’ve never been closer to access for all than we are today.

As the Americans With Disabilities Act turns 30 we find ourselves at an exciting inflection point in history.

There are three factors that are together building towards the most accessible, most welcoming, most inclusive world we’ve seen over the course of humanity.

As awareness of individuality continues to grow and reach acceptance, as the differences between all of us and our intersectional and shifting needs are considered and as we see an increase in acknowledgement of marginalized communities and the systems that limit access and opportunity, all of this collective progress and ongoing change has helped those of us who are responsible for designing products and services, find new ways of working that better serve people.

Our collective efforts towards access and opportunity for all are supported by legislation, such as the Americans With Disabilities Act, or ADA alongside AODA, which is an equivalent legislation here in Ontario, Canada, as well as many other global and regional accessibility compliance and human rights requirements. This legislation has helped raise the profile of accessible solutions and the cost of noncompliance.

All of this applies to our physical world as it does to digital, but it’s 

technology, especially digital channels that are the third factor.

Over the past 10 years, a combination of computer power, software, and interaction models in web browsers, apps, and other connected devices have made it easier than ever to engage with content.

As an example, 15 years ago, screen readers that help translate interfaces on screens into words that are spoken aloud costs thousands of dollars. Now they’re built into your smartphone in ever more intuitive ways. You can see this yourself if you turn on VoiceOver on an iPhone, or TalkBack on Android.

This combination of access to previously expensive technology that is now a default part of the most widely used devices in the history of humanity changes everything, but this is also why it’s so important that all designers take the time now to build accessible and inclusive practices into their work.

It’s easier than ever to access content if we designed for access and it’s easier than ever to design for access, because the tools are available to all of us.

Let’s work together to realize the impact of this inflection point and ensure access for all.

Are you ready to try out VoiceOver on iPhone or TalkBack on Android?

We mentioned in the video two different screen reading technologies: VoiceOver and TalkBack, for iPhone and Android respectively.

Looking at your website and the content you promote through these services is an excellent way to understand how capable these services are and if you have any gaps in how you’re sharing content that may be limiting your access to market.

Here’s how to enable these accessibility tools:

How to enable screen reading on an iPhone (VoiceOver)

VoiceOver is a screen reading accessibility feature on iOS that reads content on the screen aloud and enables gesture control of the device.

You can turn on VoiceOver on an iPhone using the following steps:

1. In your phone’s settings, tap on the accessibility section

2. Once in the accessibility menu, VoiceOver is the first option under “Vision”

3. In the settings for VoiceOver, there is a toggle switch to turn on/off VoiceOver, and other options to customize things like reading speed, speech, and commands.

 How to enable screen reading on an Android device (TalkBack)

Similar to VoiceOver on the iPhone, Android devices on the newer editions of the Android operating system have a screen reading feature called TalkBack.

You can turn on TalkBack using these steps:

1. In the phone’s settings, tap on the “Accessibility” option

2. Once in the accessibility menu, tap on the “TalkBack” option

3. From there, you should get a pop-up window asking if you want to enable TalkBack on the device. Once you confirm, TalkBack will be turned on and activated.

Whether it’s apps, websites, or web apps, determining the accessibility of these digital products is best done 

through real testing with accessibility tools and the people who use them.

accessible research, design, and testing processes

 into your team’s workflow from the start, saving time and money by avoiding future reworks to meet usability and 

Need help improving accessibility and inclusion in your products and services?

Get in touch to learn how inclusive design can help your team can open up access to markets by delivering more usable, accessible, and inclusive products and services.

We find ourselves at an exciting point in history where three factors have made our world more accessible and inclusive than ever before.

What’s next for accessibility and inclusion in products and services?

Let’s talk about the business case for “hiring thinkers and not activists”.

I’m reading from a new job board I found out about yesterday called Unwoke.hr.

That’s the header on their website: “Hire thinkers. Not activists.”

“Don’t hire ideologues whose only agenda is to use your business to further a radical cause.”

I’d like to know, on behalf of all business leaders:

What radical cause is growing your operational excellence?

What radical cause is bringing new insights and accelerating innovation?

What radical cause is growing your access to market and building authentic connections with consumers?

These are all hallmarks of businesses that excel. And the data shows these are the hallmarks of diverse corporate cultures.

What is made clear by this homepage is that the anonymous founders of this job board know very little about business, and a whole lot about ideology.

Still not convinced? Let’s take a look at the “important message to business owners” which is anchored to the top of every page of the website at Unwoke.hr.

“Let them fill their diversity quotas.”

Any responsible and capable professional in HR or those professionals working on diversity, equity, and inclusion know that diversity quotas are not the path to build an exceptional workplace culture. Belonging isn’t a mandate. It’s not a number. Implying diversity quotas are the sum total of how inclusive cultures are created highlights how little the anonymous people behind this job board know about employee culture.

“Let their employees walk on eggshells in their bubble wrapped offices.”

There is no more welcoming culture than an inclusive culture. The suggestion that you have to walk on eggshells in an inclusive workplace environment shows a complete lack of understanding of how to engage with and support employees.

“Watch your competition implode as they do their hiring based on identity rather than merit.”

Every recruiter who is building an amazing talent pipeline understands that diversity plays a significant role in bringing capability to a team, especially a homogenous team. Finding diverse talent is about seeking out, supporting, and engaging with the best and brightest talent. Suggesting otherwise is a sign of intellectual and operational laziness. And it highlights how much of a disservice this job board will be to any business as they limit themselves to just a sliver of the talent they could otherwise attract.

As seems to be typical of people who completely misunderstand the topic they’re speaking about, and willfully ignore the data and evidence that contradicts their approach to business, the anonymous people behind Unwoke are stating the exact opposite of the outcome that will be achieved by businesses that pursue intentional and authentic diverse workplace cultures.

So cheers to those of us who understand the business value of workplace diversity and embracing diverse markets.

As they say, ”don’t interrupt your competition when they are making a mistake.”

Well, that summarizes this whole endeavour. It’s just one big mistake after another.

Simply put: there is no business case for this service.

In this video, I talk about why the approach to HR described by this job board is going to be a big problem for businesses that use this service.

On hiring thinkers and not activists

In light of the terrible injustices we’ve recently witnessed—the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor in the US and Regis Korchinski-Paquet in Canada; the increasing militancy of the United States, who continue to attack their own citizens; and our already crystal clear understanding of the systemic oppression of the Black community and other marginalized groups—we have spent the past week deeply considering our responsibility as designers.

I believe that being intentional about designing products and services in an inclusive way can lead to outcomes that radically transform communities and lives for the better.

I know that these methodologies can be applied to more systemic change, but I also know and recognize the strengths and limitations of design agencies who work across a broad spectrum of specialties that include graphic design, user research, service design, architecture, media, software, and more.

As a design agency leader, I have a responsibility to our team and to the people who engage with our work. We cannot be a party to oppression. We cannot make excuses for our own failings. We cannot hide behind our clients should they not take their responsibilities seriously.

I need to take the lead from the design leaders who have been doing this important work—especially those leaders from underrepresented groups. I need to be open to criticism and acknowledge that I don’t have all the answers.

And as I make this pledge today, I call on all other design agency leaders to also be responsible to your team and those people who engage with your work in the following ways.

Be selective about the clients we work with and the projects we work on.

Demand representation on our project teams, with our clients, and with our suppliers.

Be intentional about co-creating with diverse and underrepresented communities.

Use our platforms to spotlight exceptional but underrepresented people, organizations, products, and services.

Invest time and money in providing underrepresented youth with access to industry training, mentorship, and events.

Above all, listen to community leaders and individuals from underrepresented groups to better understand needs, objectives, and outcomes that can lead to equity.

Every day, we have to strive to deliver products and services that better serve diverse and underrepresented people, and reshape the products, services, and culture of our clients so that they may do the same.

That is our responsibility as design agency leaders.

It is a responsibility I take on with great sincerity and humility, beginning with:

Asking deeper questions of our clients and prospective clients to evaluate whether we’re enabling poor outcomes by working with them.

Focusing our marketing communications on inclusive design to better attract clients and partners who also believe that intention, access, and representation is a responsibility.

Increasing our advocacy of underrepresented professionals with event organizers, publications, and through referrals.

Making more space for underrepresented talent through our paid internships, mentorship, and youth-focused events.

Assessing our talent engagement, outreach, and hiring practices to build stronger relationships with diverse talent.

Evaluating our internal cultural behaviour and workplace practices to ensure we foster a place of belonging for our staff.

I hope you’ll join me in this commitment.

Every day, we have to strive to deliver products and services that better serve diverse and underrepresented people.

A call to action for design agency leaders

To describe the past two months as ‘transformative’ would be a radical understatement. Practically every organization across the globe is navigating unprecedented and ambiguous upheaval.

As individuals, we’ve adapted our behaviour to give ample space to passers-by, and expanded our vocabulary to include ‘social distancing’ faster than crafty sewers can stitch facemasks.

As we peer into our colleagues’ homes from our new home offices, or share our gratitude for frontline workers, we reassess our relationship with work, and our work’s meaning in the world. 

Unwittingly, and for the better, this has made us all see what an inclusive approach to work looks like.

For the fortunate white-collar workers who remain employed, videoconferencing and other online tools make working from home the new normal. Unlike most ‘long-game’ transformations with labour—from safety standards to embracing diversity—this change has been abrupt and drastic. We’ve seen the ‘softer side’ of previously faceless institutions and once stoic spokespeople.

The smartest leaders have used this turbulent time to exhibit empathy and explore opportunities in this crisis. While this is no time for ‘egos or logos,’ the pandemic offers time to reflect on how to improve our workflows, hone technological solutions, and better share information and resources.

Whether we witness sign-language interpreters alongside political leaders at press conferences, or appreciate the simplicity of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB)’s online application forms, we’ve become acutely aware of the need for clarity, consistency, and inclusivity.

Like all adaptations, we must first accept this reality before we can thrive in what will be a fundamentally reshaped global economy. For organizations, new practices must engage, encourage, and enable all staff, partners, and patrons. These are all principles of 

Inclusive design goes beyond accessible services and accommodations. It recognizes an individual’s complex and ever-changing experience and needs.

A familiar example is the sloped curb on the corner of a sidewalk. Initially developed for wheelchair accessibility, this accommodation also benefits parents with strollers, or someone with sore knees—and many others with similar needs.

, which make accented speakers easier to understand or keeps our watching from disturbing others around us, but which were initially created to unlock content for the deaf or hard of hearing.

As millions more remote workers experience an upsurge in empathy, it’s time to harness this shifting perspective to create 

an inclusive approach to delivering products and services

. Innumerable studies have proven that to uncover new markets and break through with innovative products, 

a diverse network of stakeholders and colleagues is key

The natural extension of this is for more leaders to embrace inclusive design. This means accepting the complexity of the market and the variability of individuals, and connecting intentionally with diverse audiences.

To lead with real insight and innovation, we must abandon 

Going forward, people will expect adaptable, accessible, efficient, and inclusive solutions. This includes ongoing accommodations for 

, online access, and a more thoughtful consideration of our shifting needs as we move between home, office, and the many ever-changing stages of our lives.

We’ve never experienced anything like this in our world’s history. Now is the time for leaders to embrace this unique opportunity, tap into our growing empathy, and realize the capability of their teams to deliver more inclusive products and services.

Not sure how to get started with an inclusive approach to digital transformation?

From our inclusive public sector work to our insurance, banking, and other private sector work, we continue to develop our inclusive design practice and bring impactful service design and product strategy outcomes to the organizations and communities we work with. Let’s use the unprecedented change we’re facing today to continue to deliver more inclusive products and services for tomorrow.

As we all experience an upsurge in empathy from COVID-19 changes, now is the time to establish an inclusive approach to delivering products and services.

A silver lining in the midst of the global pandemic? Remote work inspires more empathy than ever

The 150 year old myth that’s screwing up your service model and product strategy

Level 2: Establish a welcoming corporate culture

Level 3: Design inclusive products and services

What can you do to level up your inclusive maturity?

As digital transformation has been an increasing enterprise and public sector priority over the past decade, we’ve been charting industry-wide progress in meeting digital transformation objectives across both operational and consumer-centric areas of service. Working with organizations across myriad industries over the past decade, from enterprise to startups, public sector to not-for-profits, we’ve seen some 

 in how prepared and capable organizations are when it comes to digital transformation and 

 work is executing an organizational digital maturity assessment. By measuring the digital maturity of an organization, we can gauge where challenges in planning, decision-making, and execution can be expected, and work with this knowledge to support improving service delivery and customer experience.

For years this has formed the basis of our work in helping organizational “level up” in the processes they use to develop more capable teams and improved product and service outcomes. 

Digital and technology literacy training, service design and product strategy processes, and 

mapping organizational ecosystems and markets

, however mature these processes may be, have historically been modelled based on an 

This presents a challenge for organizations of all backgrounds when they’re growing their digital capability through training and hiring, and continuing age-old practices that underdeliver value.

So let’s take a brief look at this myth and how it’s impacting your product and service offerings.

There’s a commonly held tenet that by designing for the “average” person we can serve 80% of the market. That we need to focus on the “average” and avoid the edge cases for efficiency and scale.

Why is this a fallacy? Simply put: because there is no average person.

As a species, we have never looked like, been built like, or acted like any kind of average. Certainly, societal ideals and standards of behaviour lent a false credibility to the average fallacy over the decades.

But as we have accelerated our geographic and cultural mobility toward multiculturalism, pluralism, and mixed relationships, the lines have been radically blurred from those legacy ideals.

And an increasingly self-aware society blurs those lines even further in recognizing gender identifies, neurodiversity, and other characteristics and behaviours. Characteristics that move us so beyond a possible average that we can hardly justify grouping people into any kind of archetype or persona.

“Personas often contain a compilation of ‘average’ characteristics that, put together, actually represent no one.” ~ Margaret Price, Kill Your Personas, Microsoft Design, 2018

This is made all the more complex because, even as individuals, we are hardly static in our own behaviour, beliefs, and identities, which can change by mood, life status, or simply day to day needs.

This means that when we design for the average we are increasingly designing for no one. That impacts the quality, capability, and credibility of our products and services themselves, how we articulate value to markets, and how markets perceive those products and services.

For a deeper dive, read the full “average” fallacy article

Thankfully, there is a better way. And that is to work to serve the diversity of the markets your organization operates in by thinking individuals over archetypes: moving beyond the average, beyond the archetype, and working toward understanding all the nuances of individuals. Embracing fluidity, intersectionality, and a diversity of market. That’s what diversity, equity, and inclusion helps organizations achieve, and that’s why it’s the only path to effectively serving diverse markets and the individuals who are a part of them.

To get there, you need to work through a series of processes that are 

 to reshape your organization and outcomes. But before you make the leap to process and activities, understanding where your organizational maturity sits across the three levels of inclusive maturity is the knowledge you’ll need to highlight gaps, opportunities, and priorities. In other words, as much as it’s important to uncover and track an organization’s digital maturity, so too is it essential to understand and shape your organization’s inclusive maturity.

So let’s look at those three levels of maturity on the path to diversity, equity, and inclusion excellence.

Many companies have embarked on their own diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) journey. With plenty of data and examples of how more diverse workforces can deliver more effective products and services, for-profit and public sector leaders have been working increasingly hard to bring these capabilities to their organizations.

In a study done by Boston Consulting Group, “companies with more diverse management teams have 19% higher revenues due to innovation”- World Economic Forum

In addition, when companies are more diverse, they inherently are more likely to innovate outside of existing solutions, driving significant increases in revenue for the company, and better product and service outcomes. Companies with above-average diversity had nearly 20% more average revenue created from innovation.

When organizations begin their DEI journey, they typically begin a 3-step journey across three levels of maturity, Which is not to oversimplify this journey. There are challenges at each level and they cover distinct organizational units, each requiring leadership support to achieve success.

Let’s look at these three levels of maturity in detail.

This is a natural place for an organization to start their DEI initiatives. When leadership understands the value of establishing a more diverse workforce, recruiting is tasked with reaching out to a broader spectrum of candidates, and the path to inclusive maturity begins.

The objective: you have a homogeneous workforce, therefore you look to hire a diverse workforce.

From a process point of view, your organization will establish inclusive recruiting processes to fill gaps in the current mix of employees. This involves being intentional about how you present the organization, job opportunities, and how and where you post opportunities. This will include reaching out to organizations, communities, recruiters, and established educational institutions to connect with a broader range of potential recruits. You may go so far as supporting or establishing additional training and youth programs to support a next generation of diverse talent. You will absolutely review hiring practices, tackle topics like unconscious biases, and be considerate of wage gaps and opportunities for people who do not identify within the makeup of your currently homogenous team.

The challenge: you hire a diverse group of people, but they are not welcome within your culture.

Hitting this Level 1 wall is a big hit to your organization. All the effort that’s gone into recruiting and hiring practices is undermined if those hires aren’t supported once they start work.

Diverse employees who are brought into homogenous cultures last an average of 6 months before they need to get the heck out of there!

Think of how this impacts an organization: recruiting efforts are costly; then you train to get people up to speed. You bring excellent talent into the organization and have the opportunity to learn and improve from their experience and unique perspective in your otherwise homogenous culture, but they are not only not set up to success, but chances are you’ll lose them within months.

Not only is there the cost of a failed hire, but there’s opportunity cost here in failing to deliver product and service enhancements because you lose that expertise and perspective.Worse still, you risk losing access to entire employee markets if your corporate culture is deemed toxic for some people.

As a result, you must mature into establishing a welcoming corporate culture.

There’s a natural progression here. As you hire more diverse employees into a homogenous culture, you need to establish protocols and processes to support this more diverse group of individuals. When people can bring their authentic selves to work, have the comfort to be themselves, and feel a sense of belonging, they can excel. More importantly, they can dramatically impact the capability of the team to deliver exceptional products and services.

A report on the importance of belonging in the workplace noted that “ Feelings of belonging have been related to a variety of positive work behaviours and, for some employees, can be an even greater motivator than compensation. In addition, scientists claim that humans cannot be healthy-emotionally, mentally, spiritually, or physically-without feeling connected to others. Consequently, implementing belonging strategies will result in organizational benefits.” ~ Feminuity,

There’s been a lot of tech community work, research, and practice around efforts to establish processes around developing more inclusive work cultures. Internal organizational priorities within Human Resources-and the advent of the Chief Diversity Officer and related roles-have led to significant capability and focus in achieving inclusive cultures within organizations.

The objective: through inclusive workplace practices you develop a more welcoming and inclusive work environment.

This has helped address the retention issues of Level 1 focused organizations. Where inclusive workplace environments retain diverse talent and offer an opportunity for people from many varied and intersectional backgrounds to succeed.

In fact, established diverse product and service teams are both empowered to and successfully shape product and service. However, it’s not enough to attempt to build a diverse organization in the hopes that the outcome is a product or service that meets the requirements of a diverse market.

The issue being that even with a more diverse team, two factors come into play:

Teams default to designing for themselves. The more diverse your team, the more likely they’ll develop products and services that serve a greater number of people because there are different voices, different experiences, and different perspectives at the table.

But the complexity of the market means that you can’t hope to hire a diverse enough product and service team to serve all the facets of the individuals that make up that market by relying on your team to naturally meet all those individual and intersectional expectations.

Serving the varied individuals that make up a broadly diverse market doesn’t happen by accident, it requires intention to move beyond an internal team and connect with the people the organization serves directly and authentically. And that’s where Level 3 of inclusive maturity becomes a necessity.

Level 3 is all about intention. There’s a clear segue from recruiting to establishing a welcoming workplace. You’re focusing on strengthening, growing, and scaling your internal capabilities in order to deliver better products and services. But the very nature of this relationship between Level 1 and Level 2 highlights the gap: it’s insular. You’re focused on your internal culture, and missing how your organization manifests itself to the market.

The key to Level 3 is shifting perspective from inside the organization to who the market is and being intentional about engaging with the diverse individuals who make up that market.

The objective: by establishing practices to engage in an authentic manner with the diverse makeup of your market, you can provide products and services that capture more market share.

The requirements to achieve this objective include having a comprehensive approach to delivering products and services that focuses on 

. Together, these core values ensure that no user is left behind, and your products and services thrive by serving a diverse market.

 ensuring a frictionless, engaging, and delightful experience.

 ensuring there are no barriers to serving someone.

 welcoming diverse market segments to engage authentically with your organization.

The challenge: product teams have to break the cycle of designing for the average and find ways to connect with and serve diverse individuals.

Breaking the cycle of designing for the average through personas and archetypes is a challenging effort for most product teams as it goes against much of what has been taught and learned. The best product and service teams have taken steps through methodologies such as use cases, jobs-to-be-done, and the behavioural objectives and outcomes of users. But this still is not enough if there aren’t processes to welcome the broad spectrum of the market into the discussion.

Diverse product and service teams have the added benefit of already having some breadth of the market in the room by virtue of the different voices and perspectives they already have in the room, but if the tendency remains to just design for the voices in the room, the market will still remain underserved.

That’s why it’s so essential to follow inclusive design practices that go beyond Level 1 and 2 DEI objectives. And be intentional about connecting with and learning from the diverse people who make up your market.

By implementing inclusive practices within your organization, from 

, you’ll be prepared to serve more diverse markets more effectively.

Understanding your organization’s inclusive maturity at each level is the knowledge you need to uncover the gaps, opportunities, and priorities that will help you connect and capture the full scale of the market you serve. This sets you up for being more capable and intentional with your DEI strategy.

Understand the 3 levels of inclusive maturity: recruiting, corporate culture, and designing inclusive products and services.

The next phase of organizational transformation: inclusive maturity

Let’s take a look at the roots of this myth

What’s next for service design and product strategy

We humans tend to follow destructive patterns of practice when it comes to the introduction of new technologies. We seem to either 

 in trying to grapple with a technology and adapt it to profoundly satisfying ways of changing our lives, or we 

 that have—through an act of generational broken telephone—become so far removed from their original intent that they’re now inapplicable to modern practice. Or, worse still, were so foolishly formed in their inception that they were almost instantly irrelevant, but time and abstraction have established them as principles of practice.

In the early days of the Internet, you could see the former unfolding in web design. 

 and early HTML specialists were learning about the pipes that powered the internet and the HTML that presented it, while working hard to relearn all the tenets of visual design, instead of applying 100s of years of 

. The result was an almost infinite wave of garish websites (hello 

). Democratization of the medium, low resolution screens, and basic web browsers on underpowered consumer computers surely played a role, but this was all exacerbated by a misconception that design needed to be wholly reinvented because the medium was a glowing screen and not a piece of paper.

. We overcame that foolishness and can point to strong practices such as interaction design, software engineering, and more, borrowing important tenets from graphic design, industrial design, manufacturing, and other fields. The issue is, despite some of these great successes in adapting principles of practice for the Web and establishing new practices to serve the medium, we have been leaning on a fallacy that has been impacting the products and services we develop to serve people on the Web and in person.

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