By Henny Swan, Director at TetraLogical
Nearly a decade after their publication in 2016, the Inclusive Design Principles (IDP) remain one of the most enduring frameworks in digital accessibility. They were created to bridge an important gap that still exists today, between meeting technical accessibility requirements and creating digital experiences that truly include people of all disabilities.
While the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) define what must be done to meet compliance requirements, many critical design choices fall outside their scope, choices that often determine whether a digital product feels genuinely inclusive, intuitive, and welcoming to people in the real world.
Accessibility compliance may ensure a certain baseline of usability, but inclusion goes deeper than this. It means recognising that every interaction, from a checkout form to a video caption, carries assumptions about who the user is, what they can do, and how they engage with technology.
The Inclusive Design Principles help teams move beyond compliance to empathy, creating experiences that adapt to disabilities, environment and emotion, as Henny Swann, Director at TetraLogical, explains.
The Seven Principles of Inclusive Design
The framework is built around seven guiding principles that together define what inclusive design looks like in practice.
- Provide a comparable experience: Interfaces should allow everyone to achieve their goals in a way that suits their needs, without diminishing quality. Text alternatives, captions, and transcripts are not supplementary; for many people, they are the primary form of content.
- Consider the situation: People use digital products in a number of different contexts. A well-designed interface should perform reliably whether it is accessed on a crowded train, in bright sunlight, or by someone managing fatigue or limited concentration.
- Be consistent: Familiarity builds confidence. Consistent design systems, predictable patterns, and clear language make it easier for people to learn and trust an interface.
- Give control: Users should be able to interact in the ways that work best for them. Allowing the pausing of motion, resizing of text, or colour adjustments respects personal preference and accessibility needs.
- Offer choice: Where tasks are complex or unfamiliar, providing multiple ways to complete them increases success rates. Providing standard form fields as an alternative to drag-and-drop interactions, downloadable forms as an alternative to online forms, or multiple help channels all expand accessibility.
- Prioritise content: Present essential information first and remove distraction. A clear hierarchy helps people focus on what matters most, reducing cognitive load and frustration.
- Add value: Innovation only counts when it improves inclusion. Features such as voice input, show-password toggles, or customisable notifications enhance usability for everyone, not just those who need them most.
Who the Principles Are For
The Inclusive Design Principles are relevant to everyone involved in creating digital experiences including designers, developers, content specialists, researchers, product managers, and quality-assurance teams. Inclusion is most effective when treated as a shared responsibility from the very beginning of a project.
Embedding the principles early brings tangible benefits such as fewer costly accessibility fixes later in development, better decision-making when balancing competing design priorities, a consistent language of inclusion across teams and products that are easier and more enjoyable for everyone to use.
For disabled people, the result is technology that respects their diversity. For organisations, it leads to products that reach more people and reflect a commitment to equity and excellence.
Putting the Principles into Practice
The IDP framework can be applied across any interface, from websites and mobile apps to voice, automotive, and immersive environments. It can also shape processes at every stage of delivery:
- Research: Frame inclusive questions such as “How might this experience differ for someone using voice input or assistive technology?”
- Design: Review layouts, interaction patterns, and copy through an inclusion lens. Ensure the most critical tasks or features are prioritised visually and structurally.
- Development and QA: Capture accessibility intent in annotations and documentation so that inclusive decisions survive hand-off and testing.
By weaving these checks into existing workflows, inclusion becomes a natural part of how products evolve rather than an afterthought added at launch.
Inclusive Design Is Good Design
The Inclusive Design Principles are more than a checklist; they represent a mindset. They remind teams that accessibility is not only about compliance but about empathy, creating experiences that adapt to the diversity of human ability, environment, and emotion.
When inclusion is embedded from the outset, digital products become easier, clearer, and more resilient. They serve not just those who need accessibility features, but everyone who values clarity, flexibility, and choice.
Ultimately, inclusive design is simply good design, design that recognises difference, removes barriers, and ensures that every user, regardless of circumstance, can participate fully in the digital world.
Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash
