A system can be considered inclusive if it is usable by as wide a range of people as possible (including people with disabilities and people using a wide range of technologies). One approach that designers can take to create products and services that are inclusive is to involve end-users into the design approach. There are a number of potential design approaches that can structure this inclusion process, and in this paper, both design models and design processes will be described and categorized.

In terms of design models, the four inclusive models that will be categorised and explained are Accessible Design (which focuses on people with disabilities), Inclusive Design (which focuses on excluded people, including: older people, and people with disabilities), Universal Design (which focuses on all people), Design for All (which focuses on all people using a range of devices).

In terms of the design processes, an overall philosophy of design that suggests that we include end-users is called “Co-Design”, and specific processes that are reviewed in this paper are: Participatory Design (requiring users to partners in designing), User-Centred Design (optionally users are partners in designing), Co-Production (focusing on the public sector), and Co-Creation (focusing on the private sector).

This research is being undertaken as part of trans-European research project and incorporates perspectives from a range of European stakeholders working in inclusive design.

Designing mobile interfaces for enhanced usability and user experience has become a standard practice in modern day app development. However, this approach often prioritizes the needs of sighted users, leading to compromised experience for people with visual impairments and blindness. This study reveals the user experience elements that make it easier for sighted users to accomplish a task while creating barriers for people who rely on screen readers at the same time. Using task-based usability tests of six popular mobile apps, the study compares the experiences of 12 sighted and 15 visually challenged users. The results reveal drastic differences in usability and experience between the two groups, highlighting the gaps and experience compromises. The study highlights how designing interfaces for enhanced usability and user experience for sighted users compromise six prominent aspects of usability for people with visual impairments and blindness leading to productivity challenges and poor user experiences, calling for a more inclusive and accessible approach to mobile app design.

The study suggests investigating technological advancements, such as building screen reader capabilities in understanding designer's intent keeping screen reader limitations in mind can address such issues to provide better experiences for screenreader users while being productive at tasks accomplished through mobile devices.

Students’ mental wellbeing has become an increasing challenge in higher education. Various studies have demonstrated the positive effects of mobile apps in improving the mental wellbeing of students. Despite of the potential benefits, accessibility and usability issues in mental health apps create barriers for diverse students, particularly students with disabilities, preventing them from taking full advantage of these applications. The goal of this study is to understand the digital barriers present in mental health apps for students in higher education and provide recommendations for designing and developing mental health apps with high level of accessibility and usability. To achieve this goal, we conducted heuristic evaluation and user testing on a carefully selected group of apps. A preliminary analysis indicates that all the selected apps exhibit accessibility issues and usability issues, which can have a negative impact on user engagement.

Academic articles are commonly published in Portable Document Format (PDF). However, for many people with visual impairments, PDF formats present significant accessibility issues. This study addresses two research questions: 1) To what extent are PDFs in prominent academic repositories accessible? and 2) To what extent are accessibility issues in academic articles known and addressed by repositories? To answer these questions, 8,000 PDFs from four prominent repositories (Springer, Elsevier, ACM, and Wiley) were retrieved and were automatically analyzed according to accessibility criteria based on the Matterhorn Protocol. Additionally, a quantitative content analysis was performed on the submission guidelines of repositories to determine the degree to which accessibility is considered in document creation. Results suggest that most PDFs were not tagged in spite of the fact that some repositories included accessibility in their general author guidelines. This paper concludes with recommendations to improve the accessibility of papers in academic repositories.