This document discusses ways to promote inclusion in design and education. It emphasizes that every decision is a design decision that can include or exclude people, and that language, structures, experiences, and interactions all impact inclusion. It encourages considering power dynamics, accessibility guidelines, and asking how decisions can be made easier to see, use, understand and work for everyone. The key message is that inclusion requires ongoing reflection on who benefits and is impacted by design choices, not checklists or perfection, in order to maintain a human-centered approach.

1. All of it Matters
What does it mean to teach from an inclusive perspective?
How do you start?
What matters most?
How do you *do* inclusion fairly?
Jess Mitchell, IDRC @ OCADU; CC-BY

2. Which one of the following 5 is least like the
others?
Cow, tiger, snake, bear, dog

3. How Things Begin Matters

4. Language Matters

5. Nothing is Neutral
how we design matters;
and every decision is a
design decision

6. Language (really does) Matter

7. Every single decision is a Design decision
• It can include
• It can exclude
• It can contribute to inequity

8. Design has a unique ability to
dignify. It can make people feel
valued, respected, honoured, and
seen.
And this is both the opportunity
and responsibility of design.
- John Cary, architect

9. Let’s Interrogate This…

10. Who
Benefits?
Who is this
for?

11. Who
doesn’t
benefit?

12. Kinds of ways we can impact Inclusion
• Architectural
• Structures can enable/limit
• Experiential
• Access/invitation/subtle messages
• Interactional
• Love patches/painful scars

13. power asymmetries
racial dynamics
mental health considerations
and other challenges

16. Guidelines, specifications, best practices,
tests, lists…
• The dangers of perfection, completeness and permanence
• “We checked all the boxes, it must be your fault”
• The dangers of checklists
• Losing sight of the humanity

17. Aim for Curiosity:
not Solving

18. - it isn’t ever complete
- it’s like bathing, you gotta keep doing it*
- it’s a value, never a checklist
- measure it by seeing how inextricable it
is in everything you do
Inclusive

19. Where do you make design decisions?
• Syllabus
• Pedagogy
• Individual goals and definitions of success

20. How Can I Do This?
• think about the edge | outliers and wonder how you impacted them
• can you let the student decide – personalize and humanize education
• think about design decisions — brilliant or exclusionary
• Worry about getting it wrong

22. IQ: Which one of the following 5 is least like the
others?
Cow, tiger, snake, bear, dog

24. @jesshmitchell

39. Ways to think about Inclusion
• POUR (WCAG – Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
• Perceivable – think of the senses
• Operable – keyboard, mouse, touch, iris
• Understandable – who does this make sense to??
• Robust – does this work with other technologies, open standards?

40. Or Ask:
• How can I make this:
• EASIER TO SEE
• EASIER TO USE
• EASIER TO UNDERSTAND
• JUST WORK