disability-inclusive-personas

Name: disability-inclusive-personas
Author: Owl-Listener

82stars25forks

How to install disability-inclusive-personas?

owl-listener/inclusive-design-skills/disability-inclusive-personas

$npx -y skills add Owl-Listener/inclusive-design-skills --skill disability-inclusive-personas

Installs into the current project.

Summary

Create user personas that include disability as a natural dimension of human diversity — not as a separate 'accessibility persona'. Use when creating personas, user profiles, proto-personas, or any representation of target users. Triggers on: persona, user persona, proto-persona,

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SKILL.md

1	# Disability-Inclusive Personas
2
3	Build personas where disability is woven into the full picture of a
4	person — their goals, frustrations, context, and behaviour — not
5	isolated as a special category.
6
7	## The Problem with "Accessibility Personas"
8
9	Most teams either:
10	1. Create personas with no mention of disability at all, or
11	2. Create separate "accessibility personas" that exist only to
12	represent a disability
13
14	Both fail. The first excludes. The second reduces a person to their
15	disability and ensures they're only considered when someone remembers
16	to look at the "accessibility slide."
17
18	## The Better Approach
19
20	Every persona set should include disability as one dimension among
21	many — the same way you include age, technical confidence, or
22	context of use. Some personas will have disabilities. All personas
23	exist in contexts that create situational impairment.
24
25	## Persona Dimensions to Include
26
27	For every persona, consider:
28
29	### Permanent Disability
30	- Visual: blind, low vision, colour vision deficiency
31	- Hearing: deaf, hard of hearing
32	- Motor: limited dexterity, tremor, paralysis, limb difference
33	- Cognitive: dyslexia, ADHD, autism, memory difficulties
34	- Speech: stutter, non-verbal, atypical speech
35
36	### Temporary Impairment
37	- Broken arm, eye surgery recovery, concussion, medication side
38	effects, ear infection, dental procedure
39
40	### Situational Impairment
41	- Bright sunlight on screen, noisy environment, carrying a child,
42	wearing gloves, driving, multitasking, unfamiliar language,
43	emotional distress, fatigue
44
45	### Intersectionality
46	- A persona can have multiple conditions
47	- Disability intersects with age, language, income, technical skill
48	- A 65-year-old with low vision AND limited broadband AND a
49	second language has compounding access barriers
50
51	## How to Include Disability Naturally
52
53	### In the Bio
54	Don't: "Sarah is blind."
55	Do: "Sarah is a project manager who has been blind since birth.
56	She uses JAWS screen reader on her work laptop and VoiceOver on
57	her iPhone. She's fast with keyboard shortcuts and gets frustrated
58	by interfaces that waste her time."
59
60	### In Goals and Frustrations
61	Don't: list disability under "Challenges"
62	Do: show how the disability shapes what good and bad experiences
63	look like. "Sarah's goal is to review her team's status updates
64	in under 10 minutes. Her biggest frustration is dashboards that
65	require a mouse to access key data."
66
67	### In Context of Use
68	Include the assistive technology and environment:
69	- What device and assistive technology do they use?
70	- What's their environment? (noisy, quiet, mobile, desktop)
71	- What's their energy level? (morning, end of long day)
72	- Who else is present? (alone, with family, in public)
73
74	### In the Scenario
75	The persona's scenario should show them using the product with
76	their actual setup — not a theoretical clean-room test.
77
78	## Minimum Diversity Rule
79
80	For any persona set of 4 or more:
81	- At least one persona should have a permanent disability
82	- At least one persona should have a situational impairment
83	- At least two personas should vary in technical confidence
84	- The set should vary across age, language, and context
85
86	This is a minimum, not a target.
87
88	## Assessment Questions
89
90	1. Does the persona set include at least one person with a disability?
91	2. Is disability integrated into the full persona, not isolated?
92	3. Are assistive technology and environment specified?
93	4. Does the persona's scenario reflect real-world usage with their setup?
94	5. Are situational impairments represented across the set?

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disability-inclusive-personas

82stars25forks

View on GitHub

How to install disability-inclusive-personas?

owl-listener/inclusive-design-skills/disability-inclusive-personas

$npx -y skills add Owl-Listener/inclusive-design-skills --skill disability-inclusive-personas

Installs into the current project.

Summary

Files · 1

View on GitHub

SKILL.md

1	# Disability-Inclusive Personas
2
3	Build personas where disability is woven into the full picture of a
4	person — their goals, frustrations, context, and behaviour — not
5	isolated as a special category.
6
7	## The Problem with "Accessibility Personas"
8
9	Most teams either:
10	1. Create personas with no mention of disability at all, or
11	2. Create separate "accessibility personas" that exist only to
12	represent a disability
13
14	Both fail. The first excludes. The second reduces a person to their
15	disability and ensures they're only considered when someone remembers
16	to look at the "accessibility slide."
17
18	## The Better Approach
19
20	Every persona set should include disability as one dimension among
21	many — the same way you include age, technical confidence, or
22	context of use. Some personas will have disabilities. All personas
23	exist in contexts that create situational impairment.
24
25	## Persona Dimensions to Include
26
27	For every persona, consider:
28
29	### Permanent Disability
30	- Visual: blind, low vision, colour vision deficiency
31	- Hearing: deaf, hard of hearing
32	- Motor: limited dexterity, tremor, paralysis, limb difference
33	- Cognitive: dyslexia, ADHD, autism, memory difficulties
34	- Speech: stutter, non-verbal, atypical speech
35
36	### Temporary Impairment
37	- Broken arm, eye surgery recovery, concussion, medication side
38	effects, ear infection, dental procedure
39
40	### Situational Impairment
41	- Bright sunlight on screen, noisy environment, carrying a child,
42	wearing gloves, driving, multitasking, unfamiliar language,
43	emotional distress, fatigue
44
45	### Intersectionality
46	- A persona can have multiple conditions
47	- Disability intersects with age, language, income, technical skill
48	- A 65-year-old with low vision AND limited broadband AND a
49	second language has compounding access barriers
50
51	## How to Include Disability Naturally
52
53	### In the Bio
54	Don't: "Sarah is blind."
55	Do: "Sarah is a project manager who has been blind since birth.
56	She uses JAWS screen reader on her work laptop and VoiceOver on
57	her iPhone. She's fast with keyboard shortcuts and gets frustrated
58	by interfaces that waste her time."
59
60	### In Goals and Frustrations
61	Don't: list disability under "Challenges"
62	Do: show how the disability shapes what good and bad experiences
63	look like. "Sarah's goal is to review her team's status updates
64	in under 10 minutes. Her biggest frustration is dashboards that
65	require a mouse to access key data."
66
67	### In Context of Use
68	Include the assistive technology and environment:
69	- What device and assistive technology do they use?
70	- What's their environment? (noisy, quiet, mobile, desktop)
71	- What's their energy level? (morning, end of long day)
72	- Who else is present? (alone, with family, in public)
73
74	### In the Scenario
75	The persona's scenario should show them using the product with
76	their actual setup — not a theoretical clean-room test.
77
78	## Minimum Diversity Rule
79
80	For any persona set of 4 or more:
81	- At least one persona should have a permanent disability
82	- At least one persona should have a situational impairment
83	- At least two personas should vary in technical confidence
84	- The set should vary across age, language, and context
85
86	This is a minimum, not a target.
87
88	## Assessment Questions
89
90	1. Does the persona set include at least one person with a disability?
91	2. Is disability integrated into the full persona, not isolated?
92	3. Are assistive technology and environment specified?
93	4. Does the persona's scenario reflect real-world usage with their setup?
94	5. Are situational impairments represented across the set?

People who liked this also viewed

6 picks

Type