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Consider: what do you use that was originally designed for people with disabilities?
The “curb cut effect” means that something designed for one customer segment (in this case, people with disabilities) impacts other customer segments and improves their experiences as well. Curb cuts – the ramps in sidewalks – were originally due to demands made by disabled veterans and students in California to make it easier for wheelchair users to navigate campus buildings.
Suggestion: take a moment to imagine the last time you saw this architectural feature – and to think about who uses curb cuts today.
Wheelchair users still use curb cuts, but so do skaters and skateboarders, bike riders, small children, people walking their dogs, people with baby strollers, people with cargo loads on a cart or dolly wheeling deliveries or supplies or groceries. The presence of the curb cut improves the experience for these people too.
A more digital example is the presence of voice controls/assistants like Siri, or captions on television shows. A voice control can be used when cooking or driving, for example – in other words, you are multitasking and trying to be as safe as possible. And even if you do not identify as disabled, captions on television or film can be useful in the case of ambient noise (whether you have noisy roommates or excited kids or are cooking for a dinner-and-movie night!) or to help make sure that you understand what is going on.
If you look at the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, criteria like Success Criteria Touch Target Size and Info and Relationships are there not only to aid people who have mobility or tremor issues, or to help screen reader users, but to improve the experience for everyone: for example, the Touch Target Size minimum helps guard against accidentally emptying a digital shopping cart because “Empty Cart” and “Remove Item” were too close together. It also helps with discoverability of a call-to-action button, or to point out a link or navigation item in the first place (such as directing a user to complete a user profile, check an authentication method, or to go to their email client for a receipt, a requested download, or other deliverable).
Ensuring relationships of your site are clear, and definitions are clear, also helps guard against silos and jargon. Someone unfamiliar or new to your industry might not know all the terms; OR, you may be using a term in a new way. You might know where to find a given piece of information, but someone new to your product does not. Trainings and documentation should be accessible as well, for similar reasons! This is also useful if you have multiple parts of a process: this way someone can tell which part of that process they are on, and what they have left remaining to complete.
Returning to those curb cuts: more people use a ramp than use stairs. Improving accessibility improves usability for all. You can read more about the story of the original curb cuts at the Stanford Social Innovation Review.