Inclusive design of information society technologies - Approaches and challenges

A European-wide survey and follow-up case studies have been performed to identify 'inclusive' design and development strategies in SME dealing with software development. 'Inclusiveness' has been defined as a quality attribute indicating that a product is designed to be usable and accessible by diverse groups of users, thus contributing to social inclusion. Challenges have been identified of which some were resolved by the case study participants using pragmatic approaches, while other challenges still pose barriers to integrate 'inclusive' design approaches seamlessly into prevailing engineering processes.