In the 1970s, disabled activists in Berkeley, California poured concrete to create the first kerb cuts — the sloped ramps between pavement and road. They did it for wheelchair users. What happened next surprised everyone.
Parents with prams used them. Cyclists used them. Delivery workers with trolleys used them. Travellers with suitcases used them. Elderly people who struggled with kerbs used them. The design intervention created for one specific group turned out to make things better for almost everyone.
This pattern has a name: the curb cut effect. And it appears everywhere.
It’s not just kerbs
Captions were designed for Deaf viewers. Now they’re used by people watching in noisy environments, people learning English, people who forgot their headphones, people following along at double speed. The access feature became infrastructure for everyone.
Plain language was developed for people with cognitive disabilities. It now benefits people who are stressed, people reading in a second language, people under time pressure, people encountering unfamiliar terminology. Clarity, it turns out, is just good writing.
High contrast was specified for people with low vision. It helps people reading in bright sunlight on a phone, people in poorly lit rooms, and anyone who has ever squinted at grey text on a white background.
Logical structure and clear headings were built for screen reader users. They also help people skimming for relevance, people returning to a document after a break, and people using translation tools.
What this means for organisations
When you design for the people most excluded, you don’t narrow what you’re building. You make it better for everyone.
Organisations that invest in inclusive design don’t just meet a compliance requirement. They extend their reach, build deeper trust, and create products and services that work better for the full range of people who’ll actually use them.
That’s not a trade-off. It’s the point.
The curb cut effect is why inclusive design isn’t a specialised niche — it’s the highest standard of general design. The organisations that understand this early have an advantage that compounds over time. The ones that treat accessibility as a compliance checkbox will keep paying to retrofit what could have been built right the first time.
