Key insights

1. Bake Accessibility In From Day One: It's Cheaper Than Fixing It Later

If you think about accessibility from the start of your design process, it costs significantly less than retrofitting later. Benjamin uses the example of Swiss train stations: the rail company had 20 years to make stations accessible and still isn't done, now facing protests and costly corrections. Design accessible from scratch and you avoid both the expense and the backlash.

2. Ditch the Persona: Bring Real People to the Table

Instead of representing users with disabilities through Personas, invite them directly into the design team. Benjamin argues that Personas keep people at arm's length (level 4–5 on Arnstein's ladder of participation). True participation means people with disabilities have the power to decide — not just inform or test. Replace the proxy with the real voice.

3. Solve for One, Extend to Many

Inclusive design follows a powerful pattern: solve a problem for one specific group and the solution often benefits everyone. YouTube subtitles were designed for people with hearing impairments, but now millions use them in noisy environments or while commuting. When you design for the edges, the centre benefits too.

 4. Meet Separately Before You Meet Together

When building transdisciplinary teams (people with disabilities, professionals, academics, politicians), don't throw everyone into one room right away. First, meet each group separately so they can prepare their arguments and feel safe. Then bring them together with clear rules about power dynamics. This avoids domination and creates real collaboration.

5. Use Universal Design Principles as Your Observation Checklist

Benjamin's team developed a simple audit tool based on the 7 universal design principles. Use these as a structured checklist when doing fieldwork or evaluating a service. No need to reinvent the wheel. Just apply these lenses systematically to spot what's broken.

Transcript of the webinar

## Introduction and Welcome

Many thanks for this opportunity to speak about accessibility and Service Design. And I will do an focus on the tourism sector as a now accessible tourism is one of my research area. My background is in management science and especially in marketing.

So sometimes I have some word from the marketing field and you will see, or we called some things may be different as in the other field. 

## Importance of Inclusive Innovation

Today I will try to answer this question why is inclusive innovation necessary today? And I will illustrate that with the tourism sector as is. It is my main research area.

So we will go to the evolution, go through the evolution of consumer profiles. Also the role of consumers in innovation management the innovation process for services. Then I will speak about the place of consumer with disabilities in design approaches in general participatory research and focus on the tourist sector.

So the accessible tourism research.

## Challenges in Accessibility

So first why is inclusive innovation necessary? According to Fabry three or out of four innovation are failures. So they do not meet the markets. So there is a lot of loss. So we saw this lot loss with this this fact. Of 75% that of innovation that are that do not meet the market.

Then social inclusion now is a major threat. We speak about diversity, minority, and also empowerment, and there is some limitation of conventional marketing approaches. Particularly profiling and segmentation, and we will speak about the Persona approach during this presentation. So also a focus on the tourist sector or the mobility sector.

So this is an example of the train company in Switzerland. So in Switzerland there is a law for people with disability and the train company had 20 years to make this train station accessible. And they try to do it, but now not everything is accessible. So there are a lot of protests against the train company.

And so this is also for the company, a big issue to, to manage all these protests and these activists who, who make their voice heard. You know this probably know this scam with designability viability and feasibility and at the centers is innovation. I will try to explain how to reach this innovation with people with disability and accessibility.

So the evolution of. 

## Consumer Profiles and Innovation Management

Consumer profile. So before marketing, it was more passive consumer targeted by goods and services, and no consumer are evolving into active consumers, sometimes activist as we see in the last example for the train company and also co innovators. So we have the creative consumers who want to be involved in the creation of product and services.

And for that companies or organization need new managerial approaches like co-innovation. So in the marketing literature, there are six consumer profiles. With high potential for innovation. So the first one is the lead user by fun people. Then the creative consumer, emergent natural consumer, user entrepreneur, innovators and opinion leader.

The role of consumer in innovation management. Consumer, no participate in the innovation management process. For example, creative consumers or solution providers, but why do they innovate? They encounter different needs and they have means and also resources to obtain personalized product and for budgets.

They also expect high benefits from this innovation. As I said we need new managerial approach to innovate with consumer. So like open innovation from Chess Pro and also all the user-centered design methods like Service Design. 

## User-Centered Design Methods

So the innovation process for services. So as you say, org as organizations and consumers are co-producers of service value.

So if we have the example of hotel, so if you need advice, you go to the concierge and you speak with the concierge to get this advice. This is the co-production of the service, and it's also why we have this this core innovation based on this co-production of services. So we have all the user centered design methods. Norman summarizes these methods in four steps.

So observation, ideation, prototyping, and testing. And we know Service Design, but there is also design thinking, a UX design for famous user center design methods. 

## Designing for People with Disabilities

Now what the place of people with disabilities in design approaches? First, designing with people with disabilities refers to self-representation.

Who is really important in the disabilities sector is that people could self represent themself. Then we use user-centered design methods as innovation process, and there is specific approaches. The first one is universal design with based on seven principle focuses on designing products, services, and environments that can be used by everyone.

And also an inclusive design process proposed by arms. So the seven principle of universal design. The first one is equitable use. Second, flexibility in use. Simple and intuitive use process, perceptible information. Five, tolerance for error. Six, low physical effort, and seven size and space for approach and use.

And as. You see all this principle are common sense, let's say. And if you check if your service or product meet match with this universal design principle it'll be useful for everyone. Then the inclusive design. So this is, there are three principles proposed by s the first one is to recognize exclusion, then to learn from diversity and then to solve for one and extend to many.

So one example of this inclusive design is the subtitle for video for example in YouTube. So it was thing for people with hearing impairments, but you can use if you have too much noise in your room or in the train to watch a video, and you can use this subject title. 

## Consumer Empowerment and Participatory Research

Now I will speak about consumer empowerment.

The notion of empowerment enable us to understand access to power as both state or goal, and also the process for achieving it. The empowerment process is a set of practices characterized by the budget of user empowerment and the transformation of the relationship between users and professionals.

And for us as marketer is the transformation of the relationship between the consumer and the organization. There are different view in marketing also often contradictory. So for some empowerment means giving consumer permission to take control of certain aspect of the product or services.

That could be the color, the price or the design. And this is what we call the top down movement. So it's the company who. Said, okay, you can choose the color, but not so much, let's say, and the other movement is the bottom up. And then it's really the consumer who would like to free from the company.

And personally I'm interested in the bottom up movement because it's retains the transformative goal of enabling people with disability to regain power. Then I will speak about participatory research, and the first notion that I would like to define is the participation. And for that I retained Einstein leader of participation.

And so it's Stein is a sociologist. And here she has make this made this letter with eight steps. And for Arch Einstein participation means power to decide. So if you are, if you do, consultation is not participation information is not participation really. When you. You said, okay, the consumer can decide or ask the power to decide.

This is what is called participation. So also with our team here in c we reflect on the user-centered design methods. And we pairs some limits of user involvement. So first user informants prior to development in the step one observation, and here we are in the level four. So it's not participation.

And then we also, the user as are testers of the proposed solution. And this is level five. And the goal now is to reach level six where user have the power to decide, so to participate. So for that, we use now a collaborative action research. 

## Transdisciplinary Approach to Co-Innovation

It's a process in which social actors are no longer a passive object of research or investigation, but are subject conducting research in collaboration with professor, professional researcher, so the social group's concern, identified the issue carry out critical analysis and seek appropriate solutions.

So we propose a transdisciplinary approach to co-innovation. It's based on the principle of collaborative action research. So first is the recognition of non-scientific knowledge, so usage of per objective, professional and political on equal term with scientific knowledge. And the second principle is the part participatory governance.

So the power to decide. So the to explain that in a other way. So we have different spotlight on the situation, the usage, spotlight, professional, academic, and political, and then we have a better view of the situation if we take into account all these different types of knowledge.

## Focus on Accessible Tourism

So now I will do the focus on the tourist sector. So I'm back on the Service Design method we use and we develop here in c with Professor Emmanuel, Fran we work a lot of on this method and for us, so the field work is the first step. So this is a picture of a kitchen in a deep foundation for deep blind people.

And you see the device on the kitchen is to to enable people to place their their plate and to run it. And this device do not exist on the market. So it was really as I was in the foundation discussing with stiff, blind diff or blind people, and they explained me this device. Then the script phase with the Blueprint Service Blueprint.

The staging. So always we do the staging with people with disabilities as you see in the on the photos and the production phase. So the goal for us is really that the innovation go into the market and our alive for consumers. So we develop a no nod tool for observation. This is based on universal design principle.

So the goal is really to describe the situation and to use the universal design principle as audit rules. And said, okay, this is not okay, because the size and spaces for approach and use is not okay. And then so now also we recognize the non-scientific knowledge, so we try to build transdisciplinary teams.

As you see the example of this project to create an inclusive culture network in Neuchatel. So we live with people with disability and also people of the culture, and they work together to create this network. And also the part participatory governance. So this we said democracy, so it's people who prioritized action plan for this network.

And at the end, this example of the Inclusive Culture Network in Neuchatel. So people create the association without us. So we finish the mandate with this last meeting and then there. Let's say they were empowered and they create themselves this association for us. It's a new service, so it's the goal of the Service Design and they do it by themselves as a confusion.

For me and for my colleague we are now seeking from, for new tools for this transdisciplinary Service Design. So for example, people with disability as co-designer with auto ethnography or self confrontation interview as new tools. People with disability as co-designer for the ideation and prototyping process.

We would like to. Delete this Persona tool and really to say there is always peer objective knowledge with us in the team and no more this Persona tool and also for the testing and prototyping to do that with people with disability and not with actors. Also for the transdisciplinarity and participatory governance at the top of this transdisciplinary Service Design.

And also for me, what is really important is to teach accessible tourism. Two tourist management students. They are the future manager in of the tourist industry. We also write a chapter with my colleagues on the Swiss way of designing inclusive experiences. So you can, you will find this reference at the end of my slides.

So many thanks for your attention. And thank you for hearing me. Thank you so much. Really appreciate this approach of looking at the issue from a very wide perspective and then narrowing it down to. On the process, like what is today, what are gaps in the process that is often used by service designers and how can these processes be adapted with new things with things to be removed?

Very inspiring. Thank you so much. My 

## Q&A Session

first question for you, Benjamin in a world that these days is very much focused on metrics, KPIs, money especially with the sessions coming sometimes again and again.

How do you pitch this notion of accessibility as something that is valuable in a world where people are in urgency mode, in cost saving? Do you have maybe a few elements that can help other service designers pitch the value of inclu of inclusive design, accessibility, and all of these things?

Yeah. First. Accessibility is useful for everyone. So if it's accessible, let's say for wheelchair, it'll be also accessible for child child travelers. So let's say that it's never a problem for the order, then there is the law. Now it's the law to be accessible much more in the us but it becomes now the case in the, in Europe and in Switzerland.

It'll also, it'll be the case then. If you think accessible from the beginning, it's cost really less than if you do the correction, let's say. So there is, there are lot of, let's say bonus to, to think about accessibility from scratch. And when you design now product or services. To do that.

Thanks so much. I feel the whole legal point of view is also a very interesting one, especially in Switzerland where we like rules and regulations. It's one of the things like reminding people that there are in fact expectations from law and just making them visible sometimes is a, is already a good push for motivating.

C-level people of saying, oh, we might have a compliance issue here and that might be a serious problem. We have a question from Shay and I'm excited to hear your question. Thank you so much Benjamin And Daniel, I think my question is a little bit upon what you guys are already talking about, the law and the legalities of it, but for example, for countries like India where there's no strict law for accessibility design, how do you have any tips or how do you suggest we go ahead about it?

So first of all I'm precise that I am not concerned by disability, so I don't have this activist view of design, let's say.

As I saw in Switzerland, there are a lot of people who are really activists who write in the newspaper, who make protest. And me I'm more researchers, so I will interview them to understand what are their needs. But yeah, it's, I think it's people with the visibility who have to demonstrate and also the society who has to evolve and to follow this this movement.

But as researcher and non-consent people yeah. Yeah, I would not opposition regarding this aspect. What I appreciate in your answer, Benjamin, is this aspect of saying, even if you are in the non concerned, you still can use kind of your profession as a voice, as a researcher, you can go in the field.

Synthesize, summarize, give back in academic papers as a service designer, you might be able to do similar things or inspire through services that are in fact inclusive and accessible. As a storyteller, you might be able to use stories for that. And I feel the whole activist thing is also definitely a piece of the puzzle that is, that, that is deeply important.

Yes. Yeah. For me also as a teacher. So I really like to teach these things to students. And I always have welcome people with visibility who present the challenge, for example, for accessible tourism, and who directly do the design with students. So at the end. Much more facilitator between students and people with disability and the methods, and they do the work together.

So it's also my point of view about this accessibility. Thank you so much. I see that Lely has a question for you, Benjamin. So is my picture freeze because yours is. We are still hearing you and everything is all right. Okay, perfect. Thank you for all you have done and are, and you're doing and sharing it here.

I feel there is sens sensitivity among people with disabilities about wanting to be like everyone else, but at the same time, some exceptions need to be made. Especially in physical spaces, like to make participants easier participation, easier for them, and somehow actually this boundary ends up being created unconsciously.

My question is that, do you think accessibility should be invisible when done well or proudly visible?

So from, so probably the now accessibility should be by design. And no more and at all. For example, if you organize conference by design you think about all the accessibility measure you need, and then. Even if there is one or no people with disability, there are all this accessibility measure who are provided.

And then, yeah, there are different point of view about disability and accessibility. There, there is the first point of view is the medical model of disability. If you know it, it's much more individual problem, so people has. To have this accessible device to, to come. Then there is the social model of disability who is much more a sociable problem.

So our social construct or also, and this is the society who has to adapt and make it accessible. Now there is new of the third approach is the identity model, and also for me now is the challenge to to bring this identity model in accessible tourism. So really to understand what is, for example, a hiking for people with for people with hearing disability and to design a hiking for these people, and not to make the hiking accessible, but really is Yeah the main challenge that I would like to, to.

To study now is to go forward for the to go a step further in this identity model. Thanks so much. We have another question which asks, how did you build and invite people to join your trans transdisciplinary team? So how did you build this team of all these experts, but also people who are affected, who have various disabilities?

We have a strong network in the region and collaboration with association of people with disability. Also organization who welcome people with disability. Always we, yeah, we have this network for, we do a phone call or email. Are you interested in. Participating in this project, research project and so on.

And how did you first find those? Because that's always the thing when people are starting, are there do, are you looking for specific types or sub-branches? Do you look for how do you find the first round of people to join such a network? So there is the association route, you said.

Is there other sides maybe in the academia or other approaches to build such a network? So it's, yeah, with the association. The professional also who work with people with disability. And but sometimes what is also difficult is that in the association that it's always the same people who are, let's say activists.

To have a bigger network, sometimes it's, it is an issue for us. That's it. Inspiring. So go to, try to go beyond the activists is definitely something to look for. Thanks so much. We have another question which asks, have you collected along the way? Any principles to make a service accessible?

UX has some more specific than the seven principle of universal design. So for accessible tourism, there is a, is rules, no standardization or principle.

I use this ISO standards also to to teach. And let's say that everything is described is this, in this ISO standards to make accessible tourism. So the universal design principle are described in these standards. The also the guideline for web accessibility are in these standards.

So there are a lot of standard that ex exist and we do not create new standards that we use it for the observation. And as for example, the audit tool that I show before. So no need to reinvent the wheel but instead using several wheels to then have a very strong car with many wheels of inspirations.

And definitely a very important piece. We have someone saying Thank you so much Benjamin, for sharing your research and experience. You mentioned in your presentation the trans. Disciplinary framework where the usage, professional, academic, and political sites are involved. Do you have a practical example of an initiative you could share how these different sites work together?

The inclusive network for culture in chattel was exactly done in this in this way. The transdisciplinary team was composed of people with disability people from the culture, industry politics, or let's say yeah, politic and us as academia who lead the process to do it.

I mentioned the article with where we described the project. And it's in French, but you can discover it and Google Translate is usually very good for getting the big ideas directly. I'd be curious to know. So these are many different stakeholders brought together with very different agendas and also just calendars too.

H how many time do these people meet when you have these things, do you split that in? We first gonna meet one side, then another side. Or do you say we are gonna meet all together several times? Just for me to understand like how big is such a deep involvement, such a bottom up involvement?

Is that at the start or is it just once at every stage of the process? How big or how small is that? The principle of collaborative action research is first to meet with the group. So for example, solely the people with disability and they could prepare their arguments. And then you meet also the professional together and explain that.

There will be relation power in the meeting. So one rules is first to meet separately and then to mix, to say, to avoid the power problem. But this isn't theory. Let's say that it's also the principle. And for that we also work with. People of the social work who regular, regularly have to face these issues and have also experience to, to lead transdisciplinary, it's also you need lot of times to do that.

And that is a problem for some project. But you need times to meet people separately. Then bringing them together, explain the power relation and thank you so much for people who are joining us, not from Switzerland. Maybe a bit of a side story that I think will show a little bit of that culture of how these types of things are usually done in Switzerland is we have a culture where if we meet in a.

For a big meeting, a very important meeting. Usually people meet one-to-one. You meet every stakeholder first for a coffee, and then you rehearse the big meeting all together. So this is also I think one of those very Swiss ways of preparing where you first prepare every stakeholder and you.

Make sure that the expectations and that the power, the level of power that they get is very clearly set upfront so that then when everybody meets, it's more like a tetro piece where everyone knows how far they can go, how little they can play, what is their take, what is not their place. And I think that's maybe also a bit.

Particular to the Swiss way of doing politics. Also management, but also accessibility. And so I really love this approach of the Swiss way of doing accessibility that you are sharing with us. I'd like to go with another question from the chat. Someone says, hello, Benjamin. Thank you for your fascinating presentation.

You mentioned bottom up consumer empowerment as consumer wanting to free themselves from the company organization as opposed to being co innovators, co-producer. Is this type of empowerment every positive for a company or an organization? Are there example in do you have examples in mind where this has been positive for Service Design, for example?

So also all this research is based on a innovation program we had here in Switzerland. So it was the innovation booster, technology and special needs. And in this program, the goal was to create small teams to do innovation, and we set up rules.

So the teams must be transdisciplinary and a lot of teams. Were built solely with people with disability, academic, and and then they bring company or they create their own organization of startup to, to develop the product. So yeah, the, also I could share the link on the innovation booster program.

It was really, nice initiative during four years for an innovation with people with disability. Thanks so much.

You are an academic and I'd be curious to hear from your side. Two, maybe recommendation. What is maybe one reference that you would pick on the topic of accessibility, inclusion, and so on, where you would say this is like the top level maybe a bit difficult, maybe a bit serious.

But this is very good. And then maybe, do you have another reference, another source where you say, this is maybe more in bottom down to earth language, but still very inspiring.

So for accessible tourism there is a new book called handbook for Accessible Tourism. So it's really now the bible for us with yeah, I think 300 pages around the accessible accessibility and true risk. So let's say with that, you have everything, the ISO standards. Yeah, it's technical, but I, it is not so fun.

But it's good. The students don't like the ISO standards, but there is everything there. Maybe you can follow some activist on LinkedIn and so on. There, there is people with disability who write every week in Switzerland, for example, Malik, who write every week about accessibility and disability. And that is maybe much more fun. It's in French, so far, French guy. But yeah, if you find an activist who explain the problem, I think it's a good way to, to become familiar with accessibility.

Maybe because you are way too humble. I will add a little bit of an additional source of knowledge here, which you have been a guest editor for touchpoint, the Journal of Service Design around there was an addition, I think around accessibility, inclusion and all of these things.

And there is. Obviously you did a good work there also in selecting pieces. And I think there was also a piece that Yuko wrote, so obviously you were way too humble to say it. But that's also a big source of in inspiration. So if you go on the Service Design Network website, that is a whole section about touchpoint.

There is also a a good old but good still search engine there where you can put your keywords and then that brings you case studies, articles, events, and things like that, which could be obviously of of big inspiration. We have a last question from someone who says, Benjamin, thank you so much for your talk around, so accessibility, tourism, it seems that everybody understands the importance of it, what is it around accessibility that other industries could learn from the tourism industry? About accessibility? Maybe for tourist, the goal is to create experience, positive experience for people with this, for everyone, let's say. And yeah, let's say that the other sector could also bring this experience to have a good experience for human resources or other sectors, let's say.

Thank you so much. 

## Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks

A big thank you to you, Benjamin. It's been a pleasure to finally have a bit more of a conversation around that topic here in this stage. The important thing for me is to thank everyone who shared a question and inspiration in the chat or live here, and a big thank you to Benjamin for all of his work and all the inspirations that he shared with the community. A big thank you to all of you and see you another time.