Inclusive Design Principles Template

Accessibility focuses on ensuring people with disabilities can use a product, typically measured against WCAG standards. Inclusive design is broader: it considers all dimensions of human diversity (disability, language, culture, connectivity, age, economic status) and aims to design products that work for the widest range of people from the start. Accessibility is one dimension of inclusive design. The [a11y roadmap template](/templates/a11y-roadmap-template) covers the accessibility-specific planning process.

Frame inclusive design as a quality dimension, not a separate workstream. Just as you would not ship a feature with broken error handling and plan to "fix it later," you should not ship a feature that excludes 15-20% of potential users. For prioritization, use the [RICE framework](/frameworks/rice-framework): the "Reach" dimension naturally surfaces inclusive design fixes that affect large populations. A keyboard accessibility fix that opens the product to all keyboard users has higher reach than a niche feature request.

No. Prioritize based on your user base and market. A US-only B2B SaaS product should prioritize dimensions 1 (disability), 4 (connectivity), 5 (device diversity), and 6 (age/experience). A global consumer app should address all seven. Start with the dimensions where your current product has the largest gaps and where the excluded populations are largest.

Track three categories of metrics. Accessibility compliance: automated scan pass rates, manual audit scores, WCAG conformance level. User diversity: percentage of user research participants from underrepresented groups, support tickets related to access barriers, completion rates segmented by device type and connection speed. Product quality: time-on-task across different user profiles, error rates by input method, page load times on simulated slow connections.

Start by auditing your design system components against the checklist in this template. Prioritize fixes to shared components because they propagate to every page that uses them. The [color contrast template](/templates/color-contrast-template) provides a specific audit for the most common design system issue (contrast failures). Document inclusive design requirements in your component specifications so new components are built inclusively from the start. The [accessibility compliance template](/templates/accessibility-compliance-template) helps track which components meet which standards.