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FYI: The DISCO

is playtesting!

As a heads up, the DISCO team is working on

improving our toolkit, so slides may change a bit. Feel free to use the toolkit materials as they are currently, but if you see things shift around as you prepare for your own jam, that’s why. If you do use the current toolkit, please send us feedback to help us improve.

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welcome to the

Design a Spaceship workshop

Please note that we will be using live-captioning for our slides. Feel free to sit closer to the screen for our introduction to help see them clearly.

Use the QR code or bit.ly link to access slides and links to digital cards.

bit.ly/disco_jam

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welcome to the

D.I.S.C.O.

an employee guide to

designing an inclusive spaceship

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employee manual: table of contents

access check
D.I.S.C.O. core values

optional: case study

build your design prompt

main group design

small pod design sprint
final review and reflection

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crew

access check

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what is the D.I.S.C.O.?

Design

Inclusive

Spaceship

Collaborative

Operation

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D.I.S.C.O. core values

Speculate responsibly:

Our spaceships are about adjusting environments, not people’s bodies, modes of mobility, etc.

Speculate responsibly:

DISCO is about adjusting environments, not people. We are not imagining a world without difference, we are imagining a world that includes that difference in radically welcoming ways it does not today.
We don’t want to speculate in a way that limits agency and makes assumptions about quality of life. Wheelchair users, for example, will very often say they don’t want exoskeletons or anything to provide a different mode of mobility. Many will tell you that they’re perfectly fine with their wheelchair–they just want ramps. (This is also a common response to the expensive and fragile stair-climbing wheelchairs that designers have made previously.)
The use of tech to modify mobility and desire for cures are not inherently ableist if the individual themselves opts for them, but it is a personal choice that is not up to DISCO designers

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D.I.S.C.O. core values

Access is never purely functional:

Our designs include the emotional components of access as well.

Access is never purely functional:

Accessibility is often discussed in terms of technical standards that need to be met for compliance, but compliance does not always equal true inclusion.
Consider the difference between a ramp added to the front door of a building, versus the side or back door of a building. If a wheelchair user has to go to a side entrance or back entrance to get in, does that feel as welcoming? Sure, as long as an accessible entrance is present, it’s compliant, but front door access makes it truly inviting and inclusive.
Disabled people often deck out their mobility aids: adding accessories to wheelchairs, getting fun prosthetic covers, and getting customized themed service dog vests– as opposed to sterile medicalized designs. Mobility aids become an extension of their bodies, and they become another outlet for self expression in adorning them.

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D.I.S.C.O. core values

Everyone has access needs:

On Earth, some access needs are just “normalized” or assumed. At the DISCO, we don’t separate some access needs as “normal,” and other as “special needs.”

Our intergalactic crew includes a variety of species which makes this apparent. You cannot assume much about what even is “normal!”

No one’s needs are “special”

Uncanny Magazine’s “Design a Spaceship” essay gets at the idea that everyone has access needs, some are just assumed. As Andi C. Buchanan points out, needs based on oxygen, water, light, and food are all vital to the design of a spaceship–but, equally as important, are access needs about the controls being graspable, the chairs fitting, and the alarms not overwhelming the crew. All of these are access needs, but some are assumed to be “normal”.

The disabled person knows all too well that their wheelchair might not have room to roll up to the controls, that alarms may be overstimulating, that buttons will be reachable and large enough to accurately press. These needs are almost never assumed, and often get labeled as “special needs” that become stretch goals.

At the DISCO, we don’t separate some access needs as “normal,” and other as “special needs.” Everyone has access needs to be able to use a space comfortably. All of our clients/crew members are treated with dignity and full recognition of their needs. No one gets left as a stretch goal.

Your crew is composed of multiple species–you cannot assume much about what even is “normal!”

*On the note of access needs & robots/cyborgs/aliens: Please refer to the DISCO leader handbook for more information about the history of science fictional representation at times using aliens, robots, or other speculative “others” as allegories for marginalized communities.

To paraphrase Andi C. Buchanan’s writing, a nondisabled person designing a spaceship would plan for needs based on oxygen, water, light, and food, then stop there. Their past experience with environments working for them may mean that they simply assume the controls will will be graspable, that the chairs will fit, that the alarms won’t overwhelm. But all of those considerations are still access needs, they just are assumed to be “normal.”

But the disabled person knows all too well that their wheelchair might not have room to roll up to the controls, that alarms may be overstimulating, that buttons will be reachable and large enough to accurately press. These needs are almost never assumed, and often get labeled as “special needs.”

Uncanny Magazine’s “Design a Spaceship” essay gets at the idea that everyone has access needs, some are just assumed. To paraphrase Andi C. Buchanan’s writing, a nondisabled person designing a spaceship might consider oxygen, water, light, and food– then stop. Because they assume the controls will work for them, that the chairs will work, that the alarms won’t overwhelm. But all of those considerations are still access needs, they just are assumed to be “normal.”

At the DISCO, we don’t separate some access needs as “normal,” and other as “special needs.” Everyone has needs to be able to use a space, and all of our crew members are treated with equal dignity and recognition of their needs.

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Choose a case study

Let’s practice considering what a ship design affords and dys/disaffords its users.

Options:

Doctor Who
Binti - Okorafor
WALL-E
Black Panther

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Case Study: Project No. 530, 411

Doctor Who (old vs. new!)

Doctor Who, 11th Doctor’s Tardis

Screenshot left: Empty of people. The Tardis’s color scheme is composed of white and steel gray, with many many small circular light sources making the room bright. In the center of the photo, a ramp curves upward to an upper level.
Screenshot: Empty of people. Themed in yellow-orange (evocative of joyful artistic rust), with dim circles of light running like rivets up and down the walls, the interior of the 11th doctor’s Tardis includes swirling tree like structures around a cleared circle. At the heart of the circle is the Tardis engine (a vertical pillar of light and mechanic pump), encircled by a multipanled control panel including both screens and variable tactile controls (switches, buttons, a typewriter…) and multiple winding stairs.

Examine these two photos of the TARDIS from Doctor Who (the one on the right is from 2010 and the one on the left is from 2023).
What actions are invited vs not?

Image sources:

THE DOCTOR WHO SITE, THE TARDIS. “Series Five- Seven TARDIS Interior.” thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/tardis/interior/series-5-interior/.

Whizz-Kidz. “The TARDIS has a ramp! Why Ruth Madeley in an accessible Doctor Who means the universe to us.” Faith Martin. whizz-kidz.org.uk/news/the-tardis-has-a-ramp-why-ruth-madeley-in-an-accessible-doctor-who-means-the-universe-to-us/.

Images used under the tenant of Fair Use (Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law), for educational and non-commercial purposes.

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Case Study: Project No. 245

Wall-E

WALL-E. Stanton, Andrew, et al. Walt Disney Home Entertainment, 2008.

Screenshots: Wall-E wheeling next to one of the humans on the intergenerational ship, who sits in a red spandex suit, lounging on a hoverchair, drinking a (perhaps overly nutritious / caloric) shake and looking at holoscreen. Both the holo screen and the surrounding ship hallway are full of advertisements and placating messaging in bright colors; the floor of the hallway has blue neon lit “lanes” for directing hoverchair traffic.
Emulating this aesthetic, a wider screenshot (with the camera placed high and at a distance from the action, focusing on the space of the scene) showcases a high-ceilinged large gathering space in the ship, complete with neon holo-banners (three spell the word “EAT”); the neon lanes direct small, far-away passengers in red suits and hover chairs around a central holographic projection.
What actions are invited vs not?

Image sources:

WALL-E. Stanton, Andrew, et al. Walt Disney Home Entertainment, 2008.

Images used under the tenant of Fair Use (Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law), for educational and non-commercial purposes.

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Case Study: Project No. 81

Title

Binti

Nnedi Okorafor

Catalan edition illustrations by andreu zaragoza

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Case Study: Project No. 17

Black Panther

Marvel studio’s Africanfuturist Black Panther shows technology pointedly distinct from the rest of the Marvel universe.

Screenshot left: interior of a Wakandan Royal Talon flying ship (no, not quite a spaceship…but related), dark with white ‘guiding’ lights. T’Challa stands looking a 3D display of floating vibrarium sand, offering a scrolling and 3D map of the landscape below the ship.
Screenshot right: pilot area of the same Wakandan fighter ship, lit in white and blue. Holographic screens are visible in the background, and a holographic set of rings, likely the ship interface, surrounds Okoye’s left arm. She is seated in a lotus position, with palms facing up.

What assumptions about how a pilot, or a navigator, operate in a ship are being challenged by this Wakandean design?

Image sources:

https://www.experienceperception.com/work/black-panther-tech/

Images used under the tenant of Fair Use (Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law), for educational and non-commercial purposes.

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draw:

Ship Type Card

The ship’s purpose will guide crew roles you hire from the crew persona deck, as well as what kind of spaces you will be designing to fit said crew.

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link to accessible digital version

S1:

Pirate

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link to accessible digital version

S2:

Cruise

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link to accessible digital version

S3:

S&R

Med

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link to accessible digital version

S4:

Library

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select:

Ship Spaces

[Start with 1 ship-specific space from the ship card, and 1 general-ship space from the component list. Then add a space for every 2-3 people in your workshop, alternating between general-ship and ship-specific spaces.]

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general ship space #1

Main control panel:

Serves as the steering / systems check hub. Major tasks hosted in this often include: manual movement of the ship (speed, rotation, etc.), plotting and entering automated courses of travel (maps, tracking), hailing other ships, and defensive maneuvers to avoid space debris, etc. Primary users are often the pilot / captain / primary crew member. These elements may differ across ship missions–check alignment with your specific ship mission needs.

Things to Keep in Mind:

How can you make control information accessible to all crew, but especially those primary users?
How can the controls be operated?

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general ship space #2

Uniforms:

Uniforms for your ship should be comfortable, functional to daily tasks on your type of ship, and identifiable as both DISCO members and roles of the Crew. These elements may differ across ship missions–check alignment with your specific ship mission needs.

Things to Keep in Mind:

Make it fashion–no crew member should feel slighted by their uniform.
There can be uniform ranges (formal / informal; crew emotional tone, etc.)
What materials will you use to make uniforms sensory friendly?
What emotions do you want the uniforms to instill in viewers from outside DISCO (think about your ship’s mission)?
Mobility aids are often viewed as an extension of the body-how might you incorporate crew members’ mobility aids into uniforms?

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general ship space #3

Entertainment/rec room:

Every crew needs to unwind and have some fun–this is vital for individual and communal health and joy. The space needs to support the use of personal exchanges which can be serious and joyful, as well as individual or escapist hobbies for individuals and groups. These elements may differ across ship missions–check alignment with your specific ship mission needs.

Things to Keep in Mind:

Are your entertainment devices operable by crew of different sizes, with different types of appendages used for interaction?
Be sure to consider the emotional and mental health needs of crew as well as their personal preferences for what they may need in a rec space. What type of activities does this specific crew need to host in a rec room for both individual and group recreation?

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general ship space #4

Internal ship navigation:

This improves navigating the ship: �where is the kitchen? How do I find an emergency exit? Where am I located on this level in relation to other parts of the ship? Different ship missions will welcome people outside the crew aboard, but all ships will benefit from signage that assists crew members in navigating within the ship. Signage can take a variety of forms (and may not resemble ‘signs’ at all…) These elements may differ across ship missions–check alignment with your specific ship mission needs.

Things to Keep in Mind:

Consider the placement of signage–will it be on the ship, or located somewhere on the crew members? (Discuss with uniform/fashion team, if there is one.)
If you rely on iconography, consider the communication needs of your crew / users of the ship.
This system / signage could offer static and dynamic messaging; support finding people (not just places), and help direct crew members during specific mission moments. Think about what your crew is likely to be doing during this mission.

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general ship spaces

Additional Options:

There may be times when you want a different ship component for your ship’s mission–especially if you are working with many DISCO designers, or advanced DISCO designers. When that happens, consider using this list. These elements may differ across ship missions–check alignment with your specific ship mission needs.

Pick from this list:

Escape Pods / Lifeboats; Gym; Garden; Ship Entrance; Sustenance Center (Kitchen / Cafeteria); Cafe

Things to Keep in Mind:

Are you providing positive redundancy to make the information in this space perceivable?
Are your points of interaction operable by many types of appendages and different levels of dexterity?
Is your content conveyed in a simple, intuitive, and understandable way?

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[ What are we hand-waving away / assuming? ]

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New Client Brief

design personas

assumption-based

avoid! very easily leads to stereotyping

community-driven/research-based

better than assumption-based/nothing

co-design (best!)

Now that we’ve thought a bit about the spaceships already in existence, we move to building our own. For that to happen, we need to know who is going to be using the space!

For our client brief, we’re going to be utilizing design personas (fictional user to help designers understand user needs)

Personas come with a few ethical considerations:

avoid assumption-based, which can lead to stereotyping (especially in your design crew isn’t diverse enough to include members who have identities shared with personas)
community-driven/community-research-based personas are better than nothing, since this can still ground in your actual end users, rather than assumptions

DISCO personas have been built through co-design sessions with members of the disability community, as well as research from first-person accounts from disabled voices with access needs of our personas.

in an ideal world, we would be co-designing directly with our crew

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draw:

Crew Persona Cards

Hire your crew! Draw a card randomly for each crew role slot one by one, allowing the crew to be randomized to their assignments. (You must hire first three ship roles, but you can hire up to full crew for added complexity.)

Pay attention to which crew members are hired to which roles. Which areas on your ship will their needs be most relevant to?

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link to accessible digital version

P1:

Surussation

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link to accessible digital version

P1:

Surussation

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link to accessible digital version

P2:

Garick

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link to accessible digital version

P2:

Garick

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link to accessible digital version

P2 - SC1:

Parsley

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link to accessible digital version

P2 - SC1:

Parsley

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link to accessible digital version

P3:

Halea Silver

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link to accessible digital version

P3:

Halea Silver

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link to accessible digital version

P4:

Beebul

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link to accessible digital version

P4:

Beebul

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link to accessible digital version

P6:

Bry-Ann-Dee

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link to accessible digital version

P6:

Bry-Ann-Dee

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link to accessible digital version

P7:

Robit &

rorobytes

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link to accessible digital version

P7:

Robit &

rorobytes

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link to accessible digital version

P8:

Whirry

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link to accessible digital version

P8:

Whirry

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group design:

pick a space

Design the “ship alarm system” as a group.

Consider the crew who need to use this ship system.

What are your design considerations?

Brainstorm here:

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D.I.S.C.O.

design sprint

divide into breakout groups, and work with your group to develop a component for our clients’ ship.

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halfway there, now introducing…

the wrench

Maeve is joining the crew as our Target Strategist! How does your ship spaces need to change to also fit our Wyvern crew member?

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link to accessible digital version

P5:

Maeve

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link to accessible digital version

P5:

Maeve

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D.I.S.C.O.

post mortem

share what you’ve made!
what went right?
what would you have changed with more time?
do crew members from other pods have ideas for revision?
where did you hit conflicting or shared access needs, and how did you address them?

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not one or the other:

Universal Design (some principles showed below)

Flexibility in Use
Simple and Intuitive Use
Perceptible Information

Inclusive Design

persona spectrum

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D.I.S.C.O.

post mortem

how might your designs have changed if the ship needed to last another 100 years?
how does maintenance affect your considerations?

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D.I.S.C.O.

post mortem

how can we take what we’ve learned today and apply it to our present-day designs?

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thank you,

for taking part in the DISCO design jam

Please click the link or scan the QR code to

share your thoughts on the DISCO

& help us improve!

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Beyond the DISCO:

additional slides

During our playtesting of the intro, we found that

the following slides were a tad bit information dense for a single workshop. We have set them here at the end of the slide deck in case folks are curious to learn more, but we recommend skipping them in a one-off DISCO jam.

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D.I.S.C.O.’s history: Speculative Fiction

“requires engagement with thought-experiments that confront and often overturn passive acceptance of contemporary conditions” –Andy Sawyer & Peter Wright

So for us at DISCO, we consider speculative fiction to have a particular opportunity with our present, one that can be revolutionary or similarly active in its stance.

Speculative fiction is sometimes used as umbrella term for speculative genres including the fantastic, science fictional, “weird” fiction, and certain types of horror fiction. It can also be a term used for more inclusive science fiction, stories which expand beyond what we may consider to be “hard” science stories into the larger realm of speculation. As Andy Sawyer & Peter Wright point out in their book about teaching science fiction, SF “requires engagement with thought-experiments that confront and often overturn passive acceptance of contemporary conditions”. This is why the DISCO runs on a SF world story. Science fiction also has a long history of being engaged with design–both in terms of design practices influence the creation of sci-fi worlds (sets, sounds, fashions), but also speculative technologies inspiring real world technological creation: the bottom left image is a replication of a Star Trek communicator used by Captain Kirk to call for help; a sci-fi technology that inspired Martin Cooper, the creator of the mobile phone.

Additional info:

Speculative fiction often is anchored into the idea of distancing us from the everyday through a novum–an element that shake up the comfortable reality of the SF narrative, such as the existence of aliens or technological / scientific breakthroughs. Novums allows the chance for change to occur at the level of speculative thinking, encouraging (re)evaluation within the text and for (re)consideration by the reader.

Images: A three image collage: a brass, rectangular headed but human shaped robot peers our of woodland plants. To the bottom right, the cover of Walking the Clouds, an anthology of indigenous science fiction from Native American, First Nations, Aboriginal Australian, and New Zealand Maori authors. The cover shoes humanoid figured walking on cowrie shells and red sands in outerspace. To the bottom left, a replication of a Star Trek communicator used by Captain Kirk to call for help; a sci-fi technology that inspired Martin Cooper, the creator of the mobile phone.

Image sources:

Stokow, Martina. “Robot Science Fiction Fantasy” Public Domain Pictures.net. publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=603237&picture=robot-science-fiction-fantasy. Accessed April 7, 2025.

Reproduction of Wah Chang's Communicator for Desilu Productions' "Star Trek" television series. Image courtesy of David B. Spalding. CC BY-SA 3.0 Discovered in https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelvenables/2013/04/03/captain-kirks-call-to-spock/.

Cover of Walking the Clouds, ed. By Grace L. Dilion, published by University of Arizona Press, 2012. https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/walking-the-clouds.

Space is the Place. Sun Ra, North American Star System Production, American, 1974. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Collections Search Center, Smithsonian Institution. Object 2012.46.59. collections.si.edu/search/record/ark:/65665/fd51f3d1dda76fa4bb9971831aa81c1485d. Accessed April 7, 2025.

Illustration by Rick Guidice of a colony's windows. “Space colony art from the 1970s,” The Public Domain Review, publicdomainreview.org/collection/space-colony-art-from-the-1970s/. Accessed April 7, 2025.

“Martin Cooper can recall the moment when he was at a break in his lab watching the episode of Star Trek when Kirk used his Communicator to call for help for an injured Spock, which later inspired him to invent the mobile phone.

The inventor of the MP3 can look back to the episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where Data was playing music from his computer and conceived of the idea of the digital music file.”https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelvenables/2013/04/03/captain-kirks-call-to-spock/

https://youtu.be/0F2hSqeLDQM?feature=shared&t=60 – clip about real world science and design / SF (1:00 - 1:22)

https://youtu.be/YPAd2SCnsRQ?feature=shared&t=1410

https://scifiinterfaces.com/category/spider-man-across-the-spider-verse-2023/

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D.I.S.C.O.’s history:

Speculative Fiction

Uncanny magazine Design a Spaceship essay (2018)

The inspiration for this workshop comes from a Destroy SF special issues (the Destroy Movement started by a 7-hour funded in excess Kickstarter in 2013 and resulted in a series including: POC Destroy, Women Destroy, Queers Destroy; and the one we’re focusing on Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction in Uncanny Magazine;). This series is a playful build upon the “fears” (and phobias) of those seeing the SF genre growing ever more inclusive.

The essay “Design a Spaceship” by Andi C. Buchanan, a writer and editor from Aotearoa (ow-tee-ah-ROW-Ah), New Zealand.

The following quote uses the “strange newness” of a spaceship to make us consider how our spaces are designed:

Quote from Design a Spaceship Essay: "But start with a spaceship. Start from nothing except the vacuum of space. Sketch it with a freshly sharpened pencil across the blue-green lines of graph paper, or model it in three dimensions, dragging your mouse to shape components to your will. Research and make notes as you go, a form emerging from details and words. Picture it in your mind’s eye.

Now make it habitable.

Most people have similar ideas about how to make a spaceship habitable. Our designs usually start with oxygen. Then we add water and light and food. Most people stop there.

Or, at least, they think they stop there. In truth, nondisabled people assume everything else. They assume their hands will grip the controls easily. They assume the chairs will hold their bodies, that the noise levels will be tolerable for their ears and their brains, and that they will be able to move from one end of the ship to the other without barriers.

You cannot make those assumptions. You’ve never had the luxury of assuming everything will work for you, that you will always be welcome.

Maybe you’ve always imagined a world where all their assumptions are true for you as well, where each house and library and shop and bus—and yes, spaceship—is as welcoming to you as it is to anyone else.

Maybe you’ve never dared to imagine. But it’s time to start. People will tell you it’s unrealistic. Ignore them. If faster-than-light travel is a given, then you can sure as hell have a corridor you can roll along smoothly with a wheelchair and never have to worry about being caught out by a flight of steps or someone having left the recycling out halfway across its width. "

Image: A screenshot of Uncanny Magazine’s website, displaying the opening of “Design a spaceship” and the cover art of the special issue. scene of multiple people, most of whom seem to be people of color with range of hair types and ages, some only hazy shapes in the distance but others with distinct features and detailed items. Central is a person in a power chair, another in a headwrap and glasses, one figure with a cane, and a figure with a cart. The style of image seems handpainted, with swirls of texture and fluid lines that let the figures both blend with each other and the background environment—tall orange leafed trees. The whole cover leans heavily on purples, yellows, and oranges.

Image sources: “Design a Spaceship by Andi C. Buchanan in Uncanny Magazine Issue Twenty-Four.” Uncanny Magazine. www.uncannymagazine.com/article/design-a-spaceship/&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1744138168094603&usg=AOvVaw0rouO6RbDNrxXc91UUY36u. Accessed 7 April 2025.

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D.I.S.C.O.’s mode: speculative design

Asking “what if” with our making

Can design for levels of inclusion that people may call “unrealistic” or “not possible” today
This can lead to new goals we can start to move toward in the present

term “speculative design” coined by design academics Anthony Dunne / Fiona Raby in the 1990s.

defined as the “practice of hypothesizing future products, systems, and services to conceptualize how they might affect societies of the future.” (Shanokprasith, Medium article linked in slides)

Speculative design is a practice of questioning, rather than providing actionable blueprints.

projects can take the form of sketches, books, product pitches, and more. [ex. in our very first DISCO workshop, a team modeled a control panel for an octopus pilot out of clay to help visualize the adaptations required to help her control the ship]
counter to affirmative design, which is design that aligns with “the way things have always been done.”

(DISCO has some core values to help us avoid status quo design, which we’ll get to in a moment.)

In this workshop, we are asking “what if” with our making.

What if our future environments don’t disable, and adapt to the body? What do environments built to cater to different needs (whether cultural, access-based, or simply personality preferences) look like?
This kind of hypothesizing can design for levels of inclusion that people may call “unrealistic” or “not possible” today, but these designs can lead to new goals we can start to move toward in the present (creating the upward trend of the “preferable” section and reorienting from merely probable futures of the speculative design chart).

[Speculative design chart is a version produced by the DISCO team to match our color palette, but the concept was originally proposed by Dunne and Raby, and an original chart can be found in the Medium article linked in the slide.]

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Speculative Design:

example

After Universal Design

The Squishy House

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design beyond averages:

Universal Design (some principles showed below)

Flexibility in Use
Simple and Intuitive Use
Perceptible Information

Inclusive Design

persona spectrum

universal design

a myth, but as a verb/iterative process, can be a useful goal for broadly shared spaces
not getting into all principles, but a couple to highlight

Principle 2: Flexibility in Use (For example, a flexible control panel might offer voice control as well as control through a keyboard and mouse, so different users can interact with it regardless of ability.)
Principle 3: Simple and Intuitive Use (A good crew member application form, for example, lets you know if you have successfully submitted it, or if not, where an error needs to be adjusted.)
Principle 4: Perceptible Information (For example, if a sci-fi podcast has a transcript available, someone who is d/Deaf or someone who is in a noisy loading dock will both benefit and be able to understand what’s being said on the podcast because of the visual alternative.)

inclusive design

goes in the opposite direction of starting by designing for one, extending to others where possible based on shared need
focusing on who is most likely to be excluded by a design, learning from their lived experience, and extending the solution based on common needs (persona spectrum: solve for permanent, extend to temporary/situational)
designs will always exclude some and include others, but we’re being conscious about our choices
(diversity of ways to participate, rather than UD attempting to create as identical an experience as possible for everyone)

[We made an example visual of the persona spectrum tool featured in Mismatch by Kat Holmes/Microsoft’s inclusive design guide, to match our toolkit. More example persona spectrums can be found in these sources.]