Making your research inclusive – non-digital users and Universal Barriers

As well as disabilities and impairments, there are other things that can make it difficult for users to access services.

Users who do not use digital services

‘Digitally excluded’, ‘assisted digital’, and ‘low digital skills/literacy’ are terms that refer to users who will not or cannot use your digital service for any reason or who may need additional support because it is digital.

There are many reasons why someone may not use a digital service. People may:

• prefer non-digital channels and are reluctant to switch to the digital service
• be unable to access or afford the technology to go online
• lack, or believe they lack, the digital skills required to use the service
• lack the confidence to try
• lack language or literacy skills
• have mental health issues or learning difficulties that stop them from using a digital service
• find that the service is not designed in a way that makes it easy for people with physical or cognitive disabilities to use

You should include people in your research who face barriers to accessing your service (especially systemic ones) and who are neurodiverse.

Making your research inclusive means not excluding any users by the way you do research, such as how you plan your research, recruit participants or choose research locations. All of these things can inadvertently exclude people, and the result of someone not being included in research is that person potentially being unable to access the service being built.

Universal barriers

In government, we identified 11 universal barrier types.

We call them ‘universal’ because they encompass all the reasons why someone might struggle to complete a task, from opening a packet of food to using a government service.

Here is a list of the 11 universal barriers with an example of what would a barrier of that type could be:

• awareness – not knowing a service exists
• interface and interaction skills – an inability to type or interact face to face
• time – not having time to research services or complete lots of different forms
• enthusiasm – not being willing to take the initiative to try something new
• access – lack of access to a smartphone app or a printer for a form that must be completed by hand
• comprehension skills – not being able to fully understand advice, signage or website content
• evidence – lacking proof of identity or address
• self-confidence – lack of belief in your ability to use the service correctly
• finance – not being able to be away from work long enough to access a service
• trust – lack of confidence in people, technology or the system itself
• emotional state – not feeling mentally strong enough to take on a difficult task

You can read more about the universal barrier types in this article, or read this blog post to find out more about how they were developed.

While you must always do research to understand what barriers users of your own service might face, these ‘universal barriers’ are a helpful tool to think about. It is important to minimise or remove barriers entirely when designing and delivering a service.

Removing barriers starts with inclusive user research.

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Making things accessible benefits everyone. Take a moment to reflect on the importance of accessibility and share your thoughts with fellow learners.