In accessibility, the curb-cut effect refers to when accommodations for disabled people end up benefitting a wider group as well. In broader inclusive design contexts, the curb-cut effect can refer to anything intended to benefit a certain group which also has secondary benefits for other groups or the general public.
The name of the effect refers to curb cuts, the places where a sidewalk gradually slopes into the street. These were originally established in places like Kalamazoo, Michigan and Berkeley, California to enable wheelchair users to cross the streets and make their way around town. As a result, cities found that many pedestrians were making use of the curb cuts—skateboarders, cyclists, parents with strollers, people with carts or suitcases. Something instated with one group’s needs in mind had benefitted the general public along the way.
A more technological example of the curb-cut effect can be found in captions, which are ostensibly written for deaf and hard-of-hearing people, but which also benefit people with auditory processing disorder, people in noisy or public spaces where hearing media would be impractical or where turning up the volume would be rude, or people studying a language who could use further reinforcement of what’s being said.
Caveats
I often see people bring up the curb-cut effect when they’re making the business case for investing in accessibility. The intent is to counter the notion that accessibility is pandering to a small, obscure minority, by demonstrating that more people can and will benefit as well.
This is a good thing! However, sometimes when people bring this up, they can do so in a way that I think can be self-defeating in the long run: by suggesting that it’s “not just” disabled people who stand to gain from accommodations or inclusive design. In other words, the advocacy can, by accident, incidentally reinforce the idea that benefitting “only” disabled people isn’t sufficient justification to invest in accessibility, but rather that accessibility still needs to benefit nondisabled people for validation.
Pitching accessibility features as general-purpose can also dilute the features’ usefulness for the disabled people they were built for in the first place. For instance, alternative text is generally intended for blind and low-vision users, who access the images’ alt text with their screenreaders. In recent years, social platforms have taken to giving everyone a chance to read the alt text without the need of specialized tooling, by way of an “ALT” badge/
External Resources
- 99% Invisible on curb cuts
- The curb-cut effect in the Stanford Social Innovation Review
- Curb Cuts and Computers: Advocating for Design Equality in the 1980s, by Dr. Elizabeth Petrick for Design Issues. Archived PDF