In Ettie Bailey-King’s article “Disability is not a dirty word“, she reminds us that it’s okay to say the word “disability” because disabled peoples’ lives aren’t tragedies. There’s nothing to sugar-coat with euphemisms like “special needs.”

People are disabled by structures. A wheelchair user is disabled by design choices, like buildings without ramps. The problem is social systems, not people’s bodies. Disability is a mismatch between a person and the environment they’re in.

Disability is a spectrum and may be permanent, temporary or situational: From Microsoft Inclusive design Disability is the largest minority group there is and it’s the only one that we can enter at any time.

Disability is not a monolith and there is no singular disabled experience. Some areas of intersectionality with disability include: Race Gender identity Sexual orientation Size Socioeconomic status The experiences of a Black disabled person will vary from those of a trans disabled person or a poor disabled person in meaningful ways. Disability also intersects with every aspect of someone’s life: Employment School Family Community Mass incarceration

aid accessibility efforts, we can incorporate inclusive design. Inclusive design principals seek to create solutions that are usable by a wide range of people. There’s a saying in the disability community: Nothing about us without us. This means that our design process must include disabled people. We need to hire disabled people to create and build solutions. We need to pay disabled people for their feedback on how our solutions can work better for them.

Disability is never a barrier. Design is.