Most products, services, and systems are designed around a composite of the “average” user. That sounds logical. If you are trying to serve the largest possible market, why wouldn’t you design for the middle?
The dilemma is that the composite often fails to reflect how people actually live or experience the world. Those differences can expose where products, services, and systems work well, and where they do not.
Design innovation comes from many places. Accessibility should be one of them. It is a powerful lens, revealing friction, hidden assumptions, and opportunities that are easy to miss when we design only for the middle. Solutions developed for people who face the greatest barriers can make products better for the mainstream as well.
DESIGN AROUND CONSTRAINTS
Consider the familiar examples. Curb cuts were initially introduced to make sidewalks accessible to wheelchair users. They now also serve people pushing strollers, travelers with luggage, and workers moving carts. Closed captions are essential for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and useful in noisy airports and quiet offices. Voice controls can be indispensable for someone with limited dexterity and convenient for anyone whose hands are occupied.
OXO, the maker of Good Grips kitchen utensils, offers a compelling business example. When founder Sam Farber saw his wife struggling to use a conventional vegetable peeler because of her arthritis, he recognized an opportunity to rethink an everyday product. The resulting Good Grips utensils—with their comfortable, easy-to-hold handles—addressed limited dexterity while appealing to consumers of all abilities. What began with one person’s difficulty became the foundation of a successful mainstream consumer brand.
These examples show how designing around constraints can lead to simpler, more intuitive solutions. The benefit need not stop with the people whose needs first inspired the design. A product that is easier to operate with one hand, or a service that eliminates unnecessary steps, can improve the experience for many more people. The implications extend beyond individual design decisions. Looking at familiar problems through the experiences of people whose needs have been overlooked can challenge conventional thinking, generate entirely new ideas, and reveal opportunities that might otherwise remain invisible.
Those opportunities may go well beyond improving existing products. When companies look closely at needs that are not being met, they may discover markets they have overlooked. What initially appears to be a narrow market can reveal broader demand and inspire new products, services, or business models. That is an opportunity to rethink what the mainstream market really includes, rather than assuming that existing customers represent everyone who might benefit.
A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO INNOVATION
Realizing that potential requires a different approach to innovation. Accessibility needs to influence the choices made at the beginning, when companies are defining the problem and imagining the solution. That means involving people with different needs and abilities in those early decisions, rather than asking them to assess a product after its basic design is settled. Their perspectives can challenge assumptions and reveal possibilities that might otherwise remain invisible. The aim is not to develop a separate product for every circumstance, but to build a richer understanding of what good design can accomplish.
There is another reason this matters now. Populations are aging. Expectations around independence and participation are changing. More customers expect products and services to fit the ways they live, rather than requiring them to adapt to rigid systems. What once seemed like a niche need may point to a much larger opportunity.
The edges of the market are moving closer to the center.
For business leaders, the choice is not between designing for accessibility and designing for the mainstream. That is a false distinction. The real opportunity is to make accessibility part of the thinking that shapes products and services from the outset. Meet needs that have too often been overlooked while creating something more useful for a broader population.
The best design begins by asking who has been left out of the design in the first place.
Gail Zauder is cofounder and CEO of AbleFly.