Design for all

Design for all (DfA) means making products, systems and services that are accessible to everyone, regardless of age, disability or other factors. As a design movement, DfA is often linked to:

universal design, which invites all members of society to use a product, system or service
accessible design , which focuses on making design readily accessible and usable by everyone.

DfA combined with equity-centred community design should be an important element of any type of co-design. It mitigates any power imbalances and exclusions or barriers to participation.

“By considering the diverse needs and abilities of all throughout the design process, universal design creates products, services and environments that meet peoples’ needs. Simply put, universal design is good design.”
Centre for Excellence in Universal Design

Jim Charlton, Judy Heumann, Ron Mace and Selwyn Goldsmith were all influential figures whose activism helped shift accessibility from a specialised accommodation to a fundamental principle of good design.

Jim Charlton, a disability rights activist and author of Nothing About Us Without Us, argued that disabled people must be directly involved in decisions that affect their lives, helping to establish participation and self-determination as core principles of inclusive design.

Judy Heumann, often called the “mother of the disability rights movement,” campaigned for civil rights, accessibility, and equality, contributing to policy and social changes that improved access to education, transport, employment, and public spaces for disabled people.

Ron Mace, an architect and wheelchair user, coined the term “universal design” and promoted the idea that environments, products and buildings should be designed from the outset to be usable by people of all ages and abilities, rather than relying on later adaptations.

Selwyn Goldsmith, a British architect and disabilities advocate, pioneered accessible design through his influential book Designing for the Disabled and championed innovations such as dropped kerbs, while advancing the concept that good design should work for everyone, not just a select group of users. Together, their work laid the foundations for contemporary accessible and inclusive design practices, demonstrating that accessibility is both a social justice issue and a design responsibility.

Lived experience

A lived experience lens of disability and illness recognises that people who live with disability, chronic illness, neurodivergence, or fluctuating health conditions are experts in how environments, services, products, and systems either enable or restrict participation. Rather than viewing disability as an individual problem to be fixed, this perspective highlights the barriers created by poorly designed spaces, processes, technologies, and social attitudes.

Lived experience brings valuable insights into the everyday realities of navigating inaccessible environments and demonstrates that human needs and abilities are diverse and constantly changing across the lifespan. Connecting this perspective to Design for All means creating products, services, and environments that are usable, welcoming, and equitable for the widest possible range of people from the outset, rather than relying on individual accommodations later. By centring the knowledge of people with lived experience in design processes, Design for All promotes inclusion, dignity, independence, and participation, while often producing solutions that benefit everyone, such as step-free access, clear communication, flexible technologies, and intuitive wayfinding.

Through a lived experience lens of disability, illness, migration, and marginalisation, the work of Alice Wong, Liz Jackson, David Gilbert, and Ruth De Souza demonstrates that meaningful design begins by recognising people as experts in their own lives.

Alice Wong’s disability justice activism amplifies disabled voices and stories, showing that accessibility must be shaped by those who experience exclusion firsthand.

Liz Jackson challenges traditional approaches to inclusive design by arguing that disabled people are not merely users of design but innovators whose ingenuity should fundamentally shape design practice.

David Gilbert extends this thinking through lived experience leadership, advocating for the knowledge gained through illness, disability, and care to be valued alongside professional expertise in transforming systems and services.

Ruth De Souza brings a complementary focus on cultural safety, belonging, and equity, highlighting how experiences of migration, race, identity, and exclusion intersect with health and wellbeing and must be central to co-design processes.

Together, their work reframes Design for All as more than a technical approach to accessibility; it becomes a collaborative, justice-oriented practice that centres lived experience to share power.

Key concepts, tools and techniques: accessibility, equity, representation, barriers to participation, emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, racial equity tools, respect, psychological safety, universal design, design for disabilities and people’s first language