U*CD – Unique-Centered Design Toolkit
Designing for real people, with diverse identities, characteristics, abilities, situations and contexts.
The U*CD (Unique-Centered Design) Toolkit is a practical set of resources developed by Raising the Floor to help teams bring human diversity, accessibility and inclusion into user-centered design.
U*CD builds on established user-centered design practices while encouraging teams to look beyond the idea of an “average” or fixed user. Every person brings a unique combination of characteristics, identities, abilities, experiences, preferences and needs. Some may be permanent or relatively stable, while others may change temporarily or over time. How a person interacts with a product or service is also shaped by their situation and context, including their physical, social, cultural and technological environment.
The toolkit helps researchers, designers, developers and project teams consider this diversity and variability throughout the design process. From understanding people and their contexts to generating ideas, making design decisions and evaluating solutions.
U*CD Toolkit Resources
- U*CD Facilitation Guide – Start here. It provides the four-step process for using the rest of the toolkit and explains how the Poster, Design Guide, Design Prompts and Quick Check work together.
- U*CD Poster – Introduces the idea of designing for human uniqueness and helps teams consider diversity across identities, situations and functional capabilities. It is meant to build initial awareness of accessibility, adaptability and inclusion.
- U*CD Design Guide – Provides practical, actionable guidance for designing digital products and services for diverse people, abilities, contexts and technologies, including visual, hearing, cognitive and motor accessibility.
- U*CD Design Prompts – Helps teams ask the right questions, uncover barriers, challenge assumptions and consider identity, accessibility, use contexts, interaction design and technical resilience during design and co-creation.
- U*CD Quick Check – A short checklist for reviewing a design across inclusion, accessibility, usability and resilience for different people and situations. It is particularly useful as a reflection and review step.
The resources can be used together or individually, depending on the needs and stage of a project.
U*CD is not about designing a separate solution for every type of user. It is about recognizing human diversity and variability, and designing solutions that can better accommodate different people, needs, situations and contexts.
We invite you to also explore our Accessibility and Inclusion Toolkit , a collection of practical resources we make available to help our EU-funded project partners understand and address accessibility and inclusion in their work, including relevant European requirements, standards and good practices. Some resources are specifically intended for consortium partners.