What we’re working towards is a world, where we don’t need to say "inclusive" anymore or teach dedicated classes on inclusive design. These will be mindsets and processes that are part of the standard design toolkit.
For now, an allergy to inclusive design is really an allergy to some bigger shifts in design culture and practice. An allergy to inclusion is an allergy to change: to giving up less control, to sharing power, to abandoning the cult of personality around hero designers.
We believe that these shifts in power, roles, and relationships between designers and people are absolutely wonderful and necessary, despite the mental sneezes and headaches that it can cause.
Thank you to everyone who has joined Pinar Guvenc and Adriana Valdez Young at AIGA Design Conference 2024 on Saturday, where they shared their experience as inclusive design practitioners and educators, in how inclusive design can become an allergen to people, which corporate and student allergy symptoms they observe, and what kind of strategic tactics they utilize as remedies.
