I was at a local big-box store the other day and had the need to visit the men’s room. It is a large store and so has a relatively spacious men’s room, with the sinks just inside the entry followed by a row of four urinals. As I walked in I was struck by the fact that the four urinals appeared to be exactly the same, except for one: it was lower to the ground.

I couldn’t help wondering, “Why didn’t they just install them all that low to the ground?”

Of course, that was a somewhat rhetorical question to myself because I can easily visualize how the design process went.

And as a result only one of the urinals was installed lower to the ground, because that was all that was required.

It would be easy enough to say that “accessibility” was not considered in the design process for this men’s room, or that it wasn’t sufficiently considered. I would argue, however, that this design is very much based on a consideration of accessibility. It’s just that the accessibility considered was exclusionary and not inclusionary.

Here’s what I mean.

Back when modern urinals were first designed to be more than an open depression or slit in the ground that men stood around to, well, you know, the only people who would ever use them would most likely be adult men. There was little or no effort made to make it possible for those with physical handicaps to even get into the building, much less any thought given to how they might use the restroom. So the urinals were designed to be exclusively accessible to adult men who could stand up in front of the urinal. (To be clear, this is just an assumption, my impression based on my understanding of history in general.)

Fast forward to today when we know better and make more effort, at least on paper, to make access to spaces and facilities more inclusively accessible. The exclusionary approach is so ingrained in the culture and in design that making something accessible for the “other” is seen as something separate, something that needs to be done because someone somewhere said it had to be done.

An inclusively accessible design for this men’s room would have, in my mind anyway, had four urinals closer to the ground than the old standard (it should become an old standard, anyway). To take it even further, the design and construction standard could be changed to reflect this inclusive design approach.

If one of the urinals is going to be lower to the ground than the “usual”, why not just make them all lower to the ground? In this way you are meeting the needs of all (or at least more) with one simple change.

To be sure, inclusionary accessibility is more difficult in some situations than in others. The urinal example above is relatively straightforward compared, for example, to the challenges software and website developers have. Unlike the physical example of the urinal, which can easily accommodate all users with a single configuration, software developers have to understand and contend with often competing and contrary needs.

A basic example is the user interface of a web site in a web browser. Just take a moment and consider how you use the web browser on your laptop. Now, close your eyes and think about how you would use the web browser on your laptop if you couldn’t see it.

For the person who can see the screen, visual cues are typically sufficient and they would likely not want to hear a description of the screen or the layout read to them as they navigate the page. But for the person who can’t see the screen, the actual visual design of the site is unimportant and, for all intents and purposes, of no value. They need another way with which to navigate and to consume the content.

I am encouraged by some recent examples of incorporating accessibility in digital design. But none of this matters if “accessibility” continues to be seen as something separate from the main design, an add-on for the “others” that can’t use the “real” version.

We need to become inclusionary not just in our design work, but in how we see the world as a whole.