AT&T Discovery District, Dallas
The Globe Sculpture at AT&T Discovery District

Driving Inclusivity in Digital Content

Digital content is everywhere, but often it isn’t designed for everyone. Of the many transformative discoveries precipitated by the collective social reckonings of recent years, one of particular interest to us has been a heightened awareness among corporations and cities that the true diversity of their communities may not be reflected in the large-scale digital experiences they’ve built. As a result, we see entities beginning to identify inclusivity as a goal — and even a criteria — for new public installations and the creation of digital content.

Given Gensler’s role as an industry leader in digital experience design for the built environment, and our many engagements with clients seeking to increase the inclusivity of their projects, we believe we have a mandate to examine our own practices, as well as to determine how we can best serve our clients in this endeavor and provide informed guidance. We know that the goal of achieving inclusivity in any arena can be thwarted by insufficient tools, commitment, or insights. So last year, we set out to gather a holistic, complex understanding of how digital content can be inclusive. We focused on three key areas:

  • What are the unique ways that members of the public may feel included or excluded by digital installations?
  • How might our design process engender creative work that speaks to a broad audience? What are the best practices we should embrace?
  • What role does and should context play in defining an approach and vision for the digital content?

We engaged an array of diverse content creators — experts who work with digital content from many angles — to collaboratively explore these topics, shaping a shared perspective on how we can evolve both the way we work, and the work itself. Here is what we heard.

INSIGHTS

Performing inclusion to check a box rings false; authenticity is a commitment.
It may be easy to cast diverse faces, but it’s challenging to create something authentically inclusive. Honest efforts to make content inclusive require a commitment to seeking out expertise and discoveries that often challenge our assumptions. Missteps are possible, but we heard that genuine attempts to get it right are preferable to grander performative displays.

Assuming a sincere commitment on the part of all stakeholders to designing an inclusive experience, where should one start? Examine the context.

Context isn’t incidental, it’s crucial; it impacts who can experience the content and how they connect to it.
No experience can be agnostic of context; considering it is a central aspect of aiming for inclusivity. Change the context of an experience, and you change its meaning and interpretation. Our experts asked us to look at context honestly from all angles — the place, the moment, the brand, the purpose — and flagged that without informed consideration of these, the experience can miss its mark. Another common point of exclusion is that digital experiences tend to be built in certain cities or behind gatekept walls. One prompt for better practice? Democratize access and bring the work out into everyday life for more people.

How do we reinterpret and shape the experiences to be more integral in people's lives?
—Pico Velásquez

Once you’ve explored the implications of your context, you need to consider your team — who can and should tell the story?

Inclusivity in content extends to the creators, subjects, and the creative process.
Creative teams designing content implicitly impact the authenticity of stories. Whenever possible, fit for inclusivity should be assessed along with standard factors like skillset and client relationship. In the absence of a team representing appropriate breadth, input from experts or community voices is essential to draw on lived experience that’s relevant to the story you want to tell and the audience you want to serve.

A photo of a fountain in Chicago's Millenium Park, the fountain features a large video wall that depicts various faces spouting a stream of water into a splash pad full of people.
Crown Fountain in Chicago, by Jaume Plensa with Krueck & Sexton Architects, was identified as an example of work that is inclusive, not only because of the diverse content on screen but the way it invites public interaction. Photo credit: Serge Melki.
It is important that, even in the planning stage, a diverse set of voices is heard. It's more than just a layer of representation… it’s bringing people in for the design stage that are stakeholders.
—Ziv Schneider

Purpose, context, team, and process — when approached with a commitment to inclusivity, what does it all yield?

The most resonant content sparks curiosity, exploration, and ongoing conversation.
We heard that when questions are posed to the audience through the content, and best of all when they are able to contribute directly to the content and know that the words, images, or data literally represent them, they are more engaged in what others have added, and more open to the ideas provoked by a collaboratively produced experience.

I love that there are different kinds of people represented in this work, that I'm learning from what I'm seeing. And it's sparking curiosity… Where is this? What's happening? How did all of this happen? It leaves me with a feeling of warmth and connection, and tremendous curiosity.
—Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong

Multi-layered experiences enable people to determine their own relationship to the content.
Too often, digital content addresses audiences on a single axis of engagement. But the same story can be told with varying levels of information, diverse sensory modalities (including audio and touch), and parallel lenses of experience (aesthetics, identity, education). By providing multiple points-of-entry, and giving audiences agency in navigation, the potential audience at any given time expands and content may transcend the historical biases implicit in visual media.

Presenting different ways of learning or sharing knowledge is really critical. There are different ways of engaging people and different ways of passing on that knowledge.
—Anna Gedal

CONCLUSION

We have shared the key learnings from our research – the importance of authentic purpose, a diverse team, community engagement, and content that engages across multiple identities and experiential dimensions – with the goal of providing a potential starting point for digital content creators and design teams who operate in the built environment to address the goal of inclusivity in their work. These are not a panacea – simply ideas and tools that can contribute to our shared goals.

Above all, we wish to emphasize the necessity of continuing to ask hard questions, seek out diverse perspectives, challenge assumptions, and embrace the complexity inherent in striving to create inclusive experiences.

I found that nuance is the key to having hard conversations. When you start looking at the nuance, then you realize, wow, there's a lot I don't know, and there's curiosity. And now there's an opportunity to discover, not from a place of shame or blame, but something new, something more.

What if people start thinking about equity not with their intellectual mind, but with their humanity? What might change in the world?
—Natalie Patterson
Sarah DiLeo
As Studio Director for Gensler’s global Digital Experience Design practice, Sarah is a multidisciplinary team leader who combines her expertise in storytelling, curatorial acumen, and focus on emerging technology to lead the creation of unique, transformative immersive experiences. Sarah is based in New York City. Contact her at .
Nick Hubbard
Nick is a senior strategist in Gensler's Digital Experience Design practice, where he is focused on collaborating with major brands, workplaces, and civic organizations to create hybrid storytelling and communications that bridge physical and digital with innovative uses of technology to impact everyday experience. Nick is based in San Francisco. Contact him at .

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