This case study gives you an international perspective, and shows you various ways you can:
- raise awareness of inclusive innovation in marginalized communities
- support them through training and implementing diverse innovation models
Aims
The project wanted to improve:
- economic inclusion for disadvantaged groups in society
- environmental sustainability
- social equity, to address inequalities in income, education, and health
Focus
They focussed on:
- marginalized communities, to make sure no-one is left behind
- diverse innovation models including social enterprises, community-driven innovation, and partnerships
- issues such as poverty, education, and healthcare
- building capacity in programs that empower local communities and entrepreneurs, so they can take part in the innovation process
- sustainable development goals (SDGs), to reduce inequalities and promote sustainable economic growth
Innovation models
The partnership implemented various inclusive innovation models to raise awareness and skills. They:
- created social enterprises that addressed local issues such as poverty, healthcare and provided job opportunities for marginalized communities
- supported community-driven innovation projects that involved local stakeholders in the design and implementation of solutions to their problems
- encouraged collaboration between governments, private sector, and civil society to make the most of resources and expertise
- trained people in skills like entrepreneurship, technology, and project management to help them drive innovation
- offered mentorship and support to entrepreneurs and community leaders
Source
This case study shows you the importance of continuous learning, training, and engagement in fostering inclusive innovation.
By learning from diverse communities and stakeholders, Transport for London (TfL) has been able to create a transport system that is more inclusive and more responsive to the needs of all passengers.
They did this by:
- raising awareness
- educating staff
- engaging with diverse communities
Their plan covers 3 core areas:
- representing the diversity of the city of London
- improving diversity and inclusion in the workplace
- teaching skills and opportunities
Diversity and inclusion training
They introduced comprehensive diversity and inclusion training programs for all employees. These cover topics such as unconscious bias, cultural competence, and inclusive customer service.
Engagement with diverse communities
They consulted disability advocacy groups, ethnic minority communities, and other underrepresented groups to inform policy and service improvements.
Some of the groups TfL engage with are:
- Independent Disability Advisory Group (IDAG)
This consists of 13 members with professional expertise, lived experience of disability and expertise of the barriers to accessing public transport - Bild (previously the British Institute of Learning Disabilities)
They surveyed autistic people and people with learning disabilities as well as their carers about the barriers they face when travelling around London - Learning Disability Transport Forum (LDTF)
They work with adults with learning difficulties and disabilities - TfL Youth Panel
TfL’s advisory panel of around 30 young volunteers who all live and travel in London and give feedback to TfL to help shape policies - Inclusive Transport Forum
Made up of London and national accessibility groups and advocates who provide insight from lived experience, to help TfL understand how policy and projects may impact disabled people using public transport
Awareness campaigns
TfL educated the public about the importance of respecting all passengers. They specifically addressed the needs of disabled passengers, the importance of giving up priority seats, and the impact of hate crime on public transport.
Outcomes and impact
By focusing on Awareness and Learning, TfL has been able to create a more welcoming and accessible environment for all passengers. It has led to significant improvements in the inclusivity of London’s public transport system.
Source
Making your policies, services and products accessible to as many people as possible will give can give you advantages in growth and inclusivity.
There are already strategies, reports and laws in place to support innovation which is accessible to all and benefits everyone. These include:
Accessibility as a growth strategy
Accessibility is proven to drive connection, innovation, and profitability. Policy leaders need to get behind accessible, inclusive products and services. They are leading the way in inclusive innovation and growth to meet the demands of an increasingly diverse global audience.
Tools for accessible and inclusive innovation
We invite policymakers to encourage businesses to comply with accessibility standards by employing tools like:
When you’re running an inclusive innovation project, you need to make sure you communicate with participants and stakeholders in an inclusive and accessible way.
This includes writing clearly and plainly so that as many people as possible can understand you. Clear, plain English is easier and better for:
- many neurodivergent users
- people who are not fluent in English
- low-literacy users
- people who can’t concentrate because they’re ill, or in a noisy place, or…
- everyone – it respects everybody’s time and situation
10 tips
- Write like you’d speak. Read your writing aloud. Do you sound dull and formal? If you do, try again!
- Use everyday vocabulary:
| Instead of | Try |
| Ensure | Make sure |
| However | But |
| Such as | Like |
| Collaborate | Work with |
| Queries | Questions |
| Utilize | Use |
- Get rid of waffle, like:
- Please note
- Please be aware
- Please do not hesitate to
- Write short sentences. They’re easier to read than long ones. And that’s good
Long sentences, especially ones with subclauses like this, can be harder for people to read, which is bad
For example:
This email is to acknowledge that we’ve received your query → We’ve got your email
- Multiple short paragraphs are better than one long paragraph. So change paragraphs whenever you finish a thought
- Put the important stuff first:
- At the start of a page
- At the start of each sentence
- In headings and links
- Use plenty of subheadings. They help people quickly scan and get to the things that are important to them
- Don’t ask lots of questions in your headings (they will mostly start with ‘W’ words like who, what, why and when, which makes it difficult to scan)
- Link text on web pages must always fully describe the target
- Use sentence case not title case for headings and subheadings. This means only capitalising the first word of a heading or subheading. Using capital letters for each word makes your headings much harder to read.
Further reading
On an inclusive innovation project, you need to communicate in an inclusive way.
Inclusive communication means using language that is free from words, phrases, or tones that reflect prejudiced, stereotyped, or discriminatory views of particular people or groups.
You should think about inclusion when you are talking or writing about things like age, disability, health (including mental health), neurodivergence, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, parenthood, socioeconomic status (including class and poverty), race, religion or belief.
If your organisation doesn’t already have an inclusive style guide, good places to look are charities (like Scope for disability or Mind for mental health) and other specialist charities, or the NHS for anything health-related.
People who belong to a group obviously don’t agree about everything. This includes the language they prefer. No guidance can guarantee that nobody will be unhappy with the way you’ve written about them.
This language changes. It’s okay to not always be right up to date. Do your best, accept correction gracefully, and people should be forgiving.
If you are not sure about something, ask:
- the person or people you are writing about how they would like to be referred to
- specialist organisations
Ask yourself:
- Do you need to mention personal characteristics at all? Only write or ask about these characteristics when they matter for the thing you are working on
- Do the references to people reflect the diversity of that audience?
- Overall, does your writing reflect the experiences of the people you are writing for?
- Is your vocabulary excluding people who may not have specialized knowledge? Writing in clear, plain English without jargon is more inclusive.
- Who are you excluding when you try to be inclusive? Some of the language we use when trying with best intentions to be inclusive is not familiar to everyone in the target audience. This means that sometimes we can accidentally exclude people when we try to be inclusive of everyone.
Inclusivity means more than just including people. It means making people feel actively welcome, that a product or service has been designed with them in mind.
This method helps you build a community around a shared goal (like inclusive innovation) to learn, collaborate, and grow skills together.
A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who:
- have something that they do in common
- come together to share and develop their knowledge and skills
Communities of practice are often professional (for example a design community of practice), but don’t have to be.
When you are running an inclusive innovation project, you and the local people you are working with can form a community of practice around the subject you are working on.
Elements of a community of practice
3 elements of a community of practice
Anthropologists Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger coined the term community of practice. They said that a community of practice has 3 elements that distinguishes it from just a group of friends or colleagues:
- Domain – a shared topic or area everyone is interested in
- Community – regular discussions, meetings and other activities
- Practice – working together to develop their own and each other’s skills
How to start a community of practice
- Choose and define your area of expertise (your domain), so that people can decide whether to join
- Set your goals. What do you want to achieve? How will you know if it’s going well?
- Get members to introduce themselves, so that everybody knows what skills and experiences others bring to the group
- Select community leaders or moderators – the people who will organise things and keep the community on track
- Choose how you will communicate and meet (for example which online platform you will use)
- Give newcomers and beginners useful resources, to help get them up to speed
- Track how things are going and iterate on how your community works
Further source reading
The steps above are a very short summary of an article from Thunkific by Colin Burton:
This method helps you keep people and environments that are often ignored in mind throughout the design process.
What are inclusive personas?
Inclusive personas are personas created:
- with characteristics that are often forgotten about
- to represent people who are often left out of the design process
- to represent the urban and natural environment that is often ignored in the process of innovation
Thinking about things like cultural background, socio-economic status and ability of your personas will:
- raise awareness of those groups
- remind you to consider their needs in your designs
Tips for creating inclusive personas
- Before you create your personas, do inclusive research with a diverse group of people, including marginalized communities. This will help your personas reflect their real characteristics, not assumed characteristics that might reflect unconscious biases
- Create use cases showing how personas will interact with your product, process, or service
- Collect focused data and remember that people often belong to more than one marginalised group and have specific experiences because of that overlap (intersectionality)
- Define different aspects of your personas, such as demographics, behaviours, motivations, and challenges
- Include details such as names, backgrounds, goals, and pain points. Make sure each persona represents a unique combination of characteristics and experiences
- Share your personas with your team and stakeholders using storytelling techniques to make them relatable
- Update your personas if you conduct new research – they should evolve as you learn more about your users
Below is a general example of a set of inclusive personas for different people that might be involved in an inclusive innovation project:
- The social butterflies
- The decision navigators
- The expert enablers
- The skilled explorers
- The involvement advocates
The methods and case studies under the theme of Awareness and Learning will help you:
- learn more about inclusive innovation
- apply what you learn about in the other themes
- share your knowledge with others in the organisation
- scale the impact of your inclusive innovation efforts
Cultivating diversity, equity and inclusion
You need to embed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles in your culture and processes, by:
- identifying and addressing bias
- creating inclusive policies for processes from hiring and promotions to everyday interactions
- building empathy and respect between employees, for example by sharing experiences through storytelling
- encouraging diverse perspectives to give everyone a voice
- providing a platform for underrepresented groups to connect for example an Employee Resource Group (ERG)
- creating an underlying culture where diversity is valued and celebrated
Continuous learning
Awareness and learning is not just the first part of your inclusive innovation journey. It is something that you do throughout.
- develop or attend ongoing training on DEI topics
- hold workshops and seminars with inclusive innovation subject matter experts
- refine your communication skills
- meet regularly with people from diverse communities
- build partnerships and work with diverse community organisations
- actively seek feedback from a wide range of stakeholders
Further reading
