Imagine approaching a curb in a wheelchair. The step is only a few inches, but for some of us, it might as well be a wall. Now imagine that wall turned into a slope. With that single design change, movement becomes possible again.

But more than that, others start to benefit, too — a parent pushing a stroller, a traveller rolling luggage, a worker with a handcart.

A simple but liberating modification, made to include those once excluded, ends up changing everyone’s experience for the better. In my field of inclusive design, this innovative magic became known as “the curb-cut effect.”

Curb-cut thinking has inspired countless inventive leaps, including the creation of the typewriter, emails, text-to-speech, voice recognition, captions and image recognition — to name just a few. All were initially motivated by the desire to address a barrier experienced by someone who was excluded by the existing design, resulting in advances that benefit many more.