How Product Managers Can Shape Inclusive Futures with UX

By Bronwen Rees | bronwenrees.com
How product management  
can shape inclusive futures  
with UX?
Strategies for rolling out inclusive
design initiatives within your
organisation

Lead Product Designer (Mobile), Xero
Designer and speaker for digital  
inclusion and accessibility

The product design process is a bit f***ed.
Most of us want a world where everyone has equal access  
to digital information and the experiences to be equitable.
But in a world where money often matters more than people,  
how do we get our teams, our stakeholders or our organisations  
to commit to inclusive design practices?

Why now?  
Because we are diverse!
Of the global
population is
neurodiverse

20% Americans have  
a disability of  
some kind
1/5 Of all marriages  
are interracial  
in the US

19%

But… Inclusive design is not about designing  
one product to address all needs.

Instead…

• Develop multiple products or solutions.

• Reducing the level of ability required  
to use each experience.

25%  
Severe di
ffi
culties

35%  
Mild di
ffi
culties

16%  
Minimal di
ffi
culties

21%  
No di
ffi
culties

We can no longer design for what we consider
the ‘majority’ we should design for all.

Definition of inclusive design
Inclusive design focuses on the diversity of people  
and the impact of this on design.

Inclusive design ensures that places and experiences  
are open to all people, regardless of their age, ability 
and background.

However, you may hear (or think)...
• Inclusive design takes time and is expensive.

• Inclusive design doesn’t bene
fi
t enough people.

• Inclusive design isn’t about me.

• Inclusive design prevents creativity.

• The Inclusive design process is too hard.

Inclusive design has
everything to do with  
you and your biases.

Bias is disproportionate weight in favour for or against a thing,
person, or group compared with another, usually in a way
considered to be unfair.

Self correction against unconscious bias takes a lot of work

But learning about bias in order to recognise them in your
day-to-day is a great
fi
rst step.

Con
fi
rmation Bias
Is a cognitive bias where a person consciously or subconsciously collects evidence  
in order to support their hypothesis.

In product this can happen when there is pressure to do quick research, under  
pressure we unconsciously give more weight to data that a
ffi
rms our existing  
beliefs.

Or we minimise
fi
ndings that are contradictory to our beliefs, because  
it’s easier to work o
ff
what we already know. 
How to mitigate it:
• Research with a diverse set of participants.

• Avoid asking leading questions.

• Set yourself a goal to invalidate your hypotheses

• Recognise when ego is in
fl
uencing your work.

Optimistic Bias
This is the tendency to minimise the possibility of negative outcomes. As a result  
of optimistic bias, teams often skip user engagement, ignore accessibility, disregard
inclusive language, reinforce stereotypes, and launch products that don't adequately
represent the users.

We optimistically think that overlooking socially responsible design measures will not
adversely e
ff
ect the customer experience.

How to mitigate it:
• Play the role of the dissenter - what could go wrong?

• Make sure user research, accessibility and content design is part of your 
de
fi
ntion of done

False-consensus Bias
Is the assumption that other people think and behave the same as us. Jakob Nielsen
coined the phrase, "you are not the user," which is derived from this bias.

False-consensus bias can lead us to believe that we can rely on our own experiences
and preferences when making decisions. The reality is though, most of our users are
not like us.

How to mitigate it:
• Consider intersectionality* at every step of the process.

 
 
 
 
 
 
*Intersectionality highlights that humans have a varied mix of identities which uniquely changes our experiences.

Perception Bias
This bias gets in the way of being objective about others. Perception bias occurs when  
we depend on stereotypes and assumptions we have about various people or groups.

How to mitigate it:

• Contextual user interviews provides true insight into our user’s lives.

• Interview a diverse pool of users

• Recruit a diverse team that represents your users

Status Quo Bias
This refers to the tendency to prefer how things are and resist change. We perceive
familiar practices as ideal and consider any deterrence from that as a loss, even if
change would result in better outcomes.

When we hear the phrase, "people don't like change," this is the bias at play.  
Change is viewed as a risk, as it requires us to leave our comfort zone.

How to mitigate it:

• Get input from diverse perspectives for opportunities to be innovative.

• Interrogate what segments of the audience might designs be excluding  
and how much reliance on stereotypes there is in decisions.

Inclusive design  
is good for product

Once you understand your biases, the next step in in
fl
uencing  
a change a process and to do this we need to understand  
why inclusive design is important.

Inclusive design sparks innovation
The more we’re pushed to think outside of the box, the more
innovative we can be.

Designing for inclusion means asking questions in an e
ff
ort to push
the boundaries and pave the way for a future where no user gets
left behind.

Diversity and inclusion has always been
the core of innovation. If innovation is
about taking two ideas that are different
and overlaying them...
...the more you do that, the more
opportunities there are for innovation
and the more creativity there is.
By Benjamin Evans, Airbnb

How to… leave no user behind
Assess a product’s innovation and inclusivity against The Universal Score.

Test your product against mental wellbeing, belonging, physical needs,
neurodiversity and putting people
fi
rst… and discover new ideas.

Inclusive design saves time and money
Businesses waste time and money trying to retro
fi
t the inclusive
design process or it’s simply seen as a tick of a box at the end
of a project.
As a result, there is often a need to redesign or rebuild because
due to new undiscovered needs.

By implementing inclusive design practices at the start and
throughout the process you ensure you’re meeting all user
needs from the very beginning.

Inclusive design can drive your pro
fi
ts  
up by nearly 50%. When educating your
team about inclusivity and accessibility,
you’re not just giving them new skills to
raise productivity, you’re optimising their
work
fl
ow for the long run and fostering  
a healthier team culture.
By Tech Crunch (July 2021)

How to… implement inclusive design processes
Continue to use proven UX approaches or inclusive design frameworks,  
like conducting research, utilising relevant personas, empathy mapping,  
outlining use cases, and iterative testing.

Enlist outside help. Bring in expertise or use outside  
services for accessibility evaluations, code reviews,  
or user testing.

Inclusive design is good for people and business.
By understanding, and addressing the diversity of your users, the more
satis
fi
ed they will be and the more likely to return.

By not thinking about inclusion, organisations consciously exclude
customers. Exclusion customers leads to reduced market share.
Meeting more user needs leads to a broader appeal and addresses  
more markets.

Five million Australians are unable to
access products and services because  
of poor design, yet they possess over
$40 billion in annual disposable income.
The Bene
fi
t of Designing for Everyone  
by Centre of Inclusive Design

How to… address diverse user needs
Recruit, collaborate and test with diverse users to better understand
the challenges and opportunities.

Build diversi
fi
ed teams whose di
ff
erent identities, perspectives,  
and experiences will in
fl
uence designs.

Inclusive design  
can’t be done alone

Finally you can be the advocate but you can’t do it alone.  
Once you understand the value inclusive design can bring,  
work with others and make your voice heard.

Make it part of the roadmap
Inclusive design needs be part of the product roadmap, and
elevated.

It can be hard to bring in at a roadmap level so pair it with accessibility.

However inclusive design speaks to earlier phases of a project,  
like discovery whereas accessibility is often an outcome of inclusive
design, pitch it that way.

Getting executive buy in
A successful inclusive design process is almost impossible  
to create without executive buy in.

How to get buy in:
• Connect inclusive design to the company’s strategy

• Connect inclusive design to the company’s culture

• Communicate the business case clearly

• Draw from research to prove it worth

• Show how you will measure success

• Bring in an expert

 
Trying to run an inclusive
design process without
executive support is the
de
fi
nition of an exercise  
in futility.
By Sheri Byrne-Haber, CPACC

Ownership and governance
There needs to be level of ownership, it can sit with a few teams  
but work out what is best for you organisation.
That team should also be given governance, someone needs to
have the authority to stop a release from going public if they feel
the project does not meet the need of a diverse user base.

Make it part of the organisation
Inclusive design and inclusion needs to be considered in all  
parts of the organisational journey. It’s not enough to be  
just implementing inclusive design within a product.
• Social media
• Corporate websites
• Internal tools/comms
• Hiring processes (let’s stop hiring our friends)
• Team and organisation values

When the walls of exclusion
come tumbling down,
everyone bene
fi
ts.
By Angela Glover Blackwell

Empower the team with training
Train and keep inclusive design skills current. Invest in your team  
and give them adequate training and the con
fi
dence to practice  
their skills.
Provide them with tools to make them successful
• Access to diverse testers
• Inclusive personas
• Inclusive design product frameworks
• Training speci
fi
cally on inclusive facilitation

Conclusion
• Inclusive design focuses on the diversity of people and the impact of this on design.

• Start by recognising bias and how to avoid them

• Inclusive design has many bene
fi
ts both for product and people

• Inclusive design can’t be done alone, get a team of diverse people to support your mission

Any questions or enquiries reach out  
to me at bronwen.rees@gmail.com
Thank you

How Product Managers Can Shape Inclusive Futures with UX

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