Six steps to build things that work for everybody.
Start with whoever is carrying the most at once. Build from where the system breaks them. Grow it outward until it covers everyone. That's the whole thing, and it's how curb cuts, captions, and voice control all actually arrived.
They built a cockpit for a man who did not exist.
1950. Air Force pilots were crashing. The planes were fine and the training was fine, so they looked at the cockpit — built to the average pilot across ten measurements. Lieutenant Gilbert Daniels measured 4,063 pilots and asked how many were average on all ten. Zero. The fix wasn't a better average. It was a seat that moves. You're sitting in it right now.
Six steps. Nobody needs a glossary.
- 01
Step 01 — Find
Who's carrying the most at once? Not who complains. Who's holding four things at the same time, so your system fails them in a way it fails nobody else.
- 02
Step 02 — Hand over
Put them in charge. Pay them like an expert. They can say no, and it sticks.
- 03
Step 03 — Map
Every place it breaks them. Sorted: always, for a while, right now. Breaks that only appear when two things stack go to the top.
- 04
Step 04 — Flip
Build from the worst break, not from the average. Keep only what makes sense and is really different. "Could we try it" sorts the list. It never kills an idea.
- 05
Step 05 — Try
Three-day build. Pass/fail written before you start. The person from step two uses it — uses it, not watches a demo.
- 06
Step 06 — Share
Always → for a while → right now → everybody. Never skip rung one to get to rung four.
Built for a few. Ends up helping everybody.
I didn't make this up, and I'm going to keep saying so.
Intersectionality was named by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. Disability justice was founded in 2005 by Patty Berne, Mia Mingus, Stacey Park Milbern and Sins Invalid; the ten principles were written in 2015. "Solve for one, extend to many" comes from Kat Holmes and the inclusive design team at Microsoft. Read all of them first-hand.
Disability justice is a movement, not a business tool. One of its ten principles is explicitly anti-capitalist, and I'm a guy in a bow tie selling a method. That's a real tension and I'm not going to wordsmith it away. What I'll do instead is name the source every time and pay it back — expert rates, decision seats, named credit, and [VERIFY]% of revenue to disability-led organizations.