Most people think of universal design as being something for the built environment, but it is much more than that. Service design is an important factor in access and inclusion. There have been major disruptions in how we shop, get take-away food, share our accommodation and our cars. Universal design thinking processes have a major role to play in service design. This is the thinking of Airbnb and other similar platforms.
The article in FastCompany lists a few things to think about. Here are the headings:
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- Let a user do what they set out to do
- Be easy to find
- Clearly explain its purpose
- Set the expectations a user has of it
- Be agnostic of organizational structures
- Require as few steps as possible to complete a task
- Be consistent
- Have no dead ends
- Be usable by everyone, equally
- Work in a way that is familiar
- Make it easy to get human assistance
- Require no prior knowledge to use
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Some of these aspects could be applied in other situations too.