The most innovative teams don’t design for the average. They design for the margins too, for the customer who cannot hear, see, walk, read, or process in the “usual” way. When you design for the edge, everyone benefits. The world becomes more usable, and services become more human.
During Customer Service Week, I walked into a café that proudly displayed a sign that read “We serve everyone!”, yet I remember thinking the counter was too high for someone in a wheelchair. It reminded me of something important: accessibility is not a feel-good gesture; it's engineered. Accessibility is infrastructure, process and design. You don’t build a door and call it charity, so why is a wheelchair ramp or other disability feature treated like a favour?
The moment we position accessibility as something “nice we do for them”, we’ve already failed. You’re not doing anyone a favour by letting them access what’s already their right. The disconnect of that sign is loud. I’m sure they meant well, but meaning well doesn’t equate to serving well. While we are undeniably lagging in the realm of disability inclusion, progress is not static. Recognition of the gap is the first step toward narrowing it. The real challenge lies not in sentiment, but in structural change.
This month marks Disability Awareness Month, a time when many organisations share uplifting quotes and the hashtag #inclusion across their social platforms. Yet much of what we see is performative at best. True inclusivity is not a campaign; it’s a culture embedded in systems, sustained through policies, and evident in the design of everyday interactions.
This article is not a venting session, attack, or any type of indictment, but rather an invitation to reconsider the systems we’ve built. Now, no organisation can anticipate every need, nor can it be perfect, but it can be progressive. So the goal is progress, and this begins when we acknowledge that equity is not about pleasing everyone but ensuring that no one is systematically left out. When it comes to inclusivity, begin with the foundational question of “If your customer could not walk, hear, see, or process information in the ‘standard’ way, would your service still meet their needs?”
In far too many cases, the honest answer remains “no”. Addressing that gap is not a gesture of charity; it is a matter of doing better.
According to the World Health Organisation, over 1.3 billion people, 16 per cent of the global population, experience significant disability. That includes mobility, hearing, vision, neurodivergence, chronic illness, and more. Yet research from Return on Disability Group shows that less than 5 per cent of companies have plans in place to serve disabled customers intentionally. Even worse, many treat accessibility as an optional accommodation rather than a non-negotiable design principle.
Disability is not the barrier; the systems we build and fail to adapt are. Accessibility is not about pity or PR. It is good business.
And the most innovative teams don’t design for the average. They design for the margins too, for the customer who cannot hear, see, walk, read, or process in the “usual” way. When you design for the edge, everyone benefits. The world becomes more usable, and services become more human.
This Disability Awareness Month, let’s stop acting like inclusion is a gift we give but a standard we uphold. It’s how we show that every customer, every employee, every human, deserves to belong, contribute, and be served with dignity.
We don’t build ramps out of pity; we build them because everyone deserves a way in.
The best service teams aren’t performing inclusivity; they’re designing for it, learning through it, and creating cultures where everyone, regardless of ability, is treated not just with kindness but with competence.
