Curb cut effect
phenomenon of disability-friendly features also being appreciated by people in general
The curb cut effect is the phenomenon of disability-friendly features being used and appreciated by a larger group than the people for whom they were designed. The phenomenon is named for curb cuts – miniature ramps comprising parts of sidewalk – which were first made for wheelchair access in particular places but were also welcomed by people pushing strollers, carts or luggage. Curb cuts are now ubiquitous and no longer widely recognized as a disability-accessibility feature. Another example is hearing people using television closed captioning.
The curb cut effect is a subset of universal design, which is the purposeful design of an environment so that it is accessible to all people regardless of ability or disability. The curb cut effect differs slightly from universal design, as the curb cut phenomenon is often unintentional rather than purposeful but results in a similar outcome.
Examples
Below are some examples of the curb cut effect.
Closed captioning used by hearing people.
Game accessibility features in video games used by players with no disabilities.
Text-to-speech (TTS) applications are used by people without visual impairment or mutism.
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This entry incorporates text from “Curb cut effect” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.