You go with what you know. You’ve learned from the past. You’ve seen the results. Maybe you learn a new way of organizing or communicating. Maybe you get a new insight from feedback. Maybe something changes in the world around you. But your course stays the same. Everyone else is doing it.
Then something comes up. A new perspective, a problem you didn’t think about before. You understand it’s the right thing to do, but what can you do? You don’t know how to do it. It’s not the time or place. There are more pressing issues. No one else is doing it. Too much is unknown. You stay the course.
Exclusion happens by staying the course. It’s easy to keep the same views, the same processes, the same consumers. Inclusion breaks the mold and that comes with discomfort. Inclusion means recognizing who you exclude and how you do it in your processes, your work culture, and your leadership. It won’t happen overnight and even in a quarter, and thus deemed insurmountable.
Organizations that view inclusion this way will ultimately fail. People notice when they feel left out from a product or service and choose one that makes them feel included. It will take extensive work to recognize biases, calling them out, and shaping morality in an organization. While you do this work, you can tackle the everyday exclusion in your product.
Luckily, inclusion is already part of your goals, your company OKRs (objectives and key results). Here’s how you can take deliberate action towards inclusion.
OKRs are unique to each company, but they probably share the same themes: increase revenue, delight and engage users, build quality systems, and keep employees engaged. Let’s break down each theme and where inclusion comes in.
Increase revenue
Your company needs revenue to keep the lights on and pay your salary. Typical solutions for increasing revenue include reducing the cost of business, expanding service offerings, or increasing prices. However, these solutions tend to keep the same audience in mind: your current users. Consider how much you leave on the table with this base.
For example, many tech companies focus on younger, tech-savvy people when building and showcasing their products. What if you focused on making your products and services to work for the older generations?
By 2040, 16% of Asia’s population will be older than 65 (that’s double from 2015). This group’s spending power will also double, almost $8.6 trillion. Imagine the opportunity you’ll exclude by not focusing on basic features that older populations use, like text resizing or voice input. These features expand to benefit everyone, from people with disabilities to distracted drivers on the road.
Delight and engage users
Your company needs people to enjoy what you’re offering, whether the user interface is easy to use, the customer service solves all their problems, or the product is simply better than others on the market. If people feel excluded from what you’re offering, they will ultimately disengage and seek other services.
Hair and personal care products notoriously exclude people of color, from product offerings to advertising to even placement in the aisle. Inclusion to big brands meant running campaigns with professional models of all skin tones, but it didn’t solve the core issue. People disengaged and spent their money on brands created by them, for them. Walker & Company and Sundial Brands created products specifically addressing the needs of people of color, ultimately leading big brands to acquire them to capture the market.
Look at who you exclude from your offerings and how you can engage beyond the surface level of illustrations in a user interface or photos in an ad campaign. For example, if you’re building facial recognition software, examine if it is being built by a diverse group of people and testing on a diverse group of people?
Build quality systems
Your company’s systems need to be stable and easy to work on. Reliability ensure people have a great experience using your products. Quality in your systems ensures engineers can easily develop and maintain new features or update to the latest operating systems. The typical culture of “move fast and break things” to test new ideas and iterate in a fast-paced world, leaving quality system making to when time is available.
However, this culture excludes people reliant on quality systems. About 15% of the world’s population live with some form of disability. People with disabilities use a range of assistive technology to use products and services in a manner that works for them. This may mean VoiceOver or TalkBack to navigate through an app or an external keyboard to make typical gestures on a phone. When quality systems aren’t built, these assistive technologies do not work as intended.
Consider the multiple opportunities presented when quality systems keep inclusion in mind. For example, centering your system around accessibility needs keeps your system up to date with the latest OS releases and reduces additional work of rewriting to meet government requirements
Keep employees engaged
You want employees to be happy coming to work. Engaged employees stay longer, provide valuable work, and encourage innovation. Many companies believe this means free lunches, expensive office spaces, or flexible work schedules. Ultimately, these benefits mean nothing if an employee feels excluded from their coworkers, managers, and company policies.
For example, diversity and inclusion programs in companies generally focus on biases against women in the workplace but fail to address biases against LGBTQ people. In studies from McKinsey and BCG, nearly 75% of LGBTQ employees have had a negative workplace interaction related to their identity, with LGBTQ women experiencing the most harassment. Even further, 40% remain closeted at work to avoid such interactions.
Consider the opportunities and benefits of a fully inclusive workplace, one where employees feel safe to be themselves. Not only is it the morally right thing to do, but it also keeps employees engaged. Being out at work in an inclusive environment leads LGBTQ employees to feel safer, empowered, creative, and less likely to leave for other opportunities.
Inclusion is already part of your goals. It takes openness, curiosity, and determination to bring it to reality. If you want to learn more about product inclusion, I highly recommend Annie Jean-Baptiste’s book, Building for Everyone.