Beyond “us” and “them”
Hi there 👋 I’m PeO, a Professor of Design at Mid Sweden University exploring Accessibility, Usability and Universal Design.
We are all part of human variation. Every single I. Every single you. We all already belong. Nonclusive design starts from that and builds for it. Here you’ll find resources and writing about how design can meet variation with variation.
What nonclusion is
Nonclusion is a contribution to Universal Design,
not an alternative to it.
Universal Design targets how we can make things usable by as many people as possible. Nonclusion contributes a starting point for that work: we are all already part of human variation, so design can build for all of us from the start.
In practice, nonclusive design does three things. It designs for situations, where the interaction between people and environments is, rather than for groups of people. It lets signs and spaces communicate what they offer, rather than trying to pinpoint bodies, persons and roles. And it meets variation with variation: several kinds of seating, several ways to read, several ways to interact, several ways through a building.
Nonclusion is ultimately about societal development. It is a contribution within and to Universal Design. Design influences every day, in all situations, often without words. It tells people whether they are expected and whether they count as part of a norm or as deviating from it. Design that starts from human variation moves development processes beyond that sorting, one design decision, one entrance, one sign, one website at a time, beyond “us” and “them”. Most of this site explores what that looks like in practice.
Where to start
What brings you here?
Pick the situation nearest yours, and it will take you to the pages that describe how nonclusive design can support it. Everything you find along the way is free to use.
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If you’re looking for good examples
Start with the guidelinesThe most common question. Three guidelines gather good examples from streets, buildings, digital services and policy texts, photographed or quoted as we found them, ready to use in your own city or organisation.
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If you’re designing something
Start with the design movesA product, a service, a building, a digital thing. Ask two questions of it: is it built as if I am already here, and does it express that I belong? The design moves and examples can give inspiration for how to do it.
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If you’re writing policy or requirements
Start with the text movesThe sorting into “us” and “them” often happens in language first. Find where your text names groups of people, and try describing situations instead. Here you can find worked examples from real policy texts.
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If you teach
Start with the teaching materialHere you can find diagrams and one-pagers under CC BY 4.0, in English and Swedish, short essays that work as course reading, a photo workshop with a ready run sheet, and more.
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If you want to try this with your team
Start with a workshopField exercises you can run yourselves: a smartphone, some Velcro, a stretch of cobblestones. Several come with a one-page run sheet to bring along.
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If you’re doing research
Start with the papersAnchor papers with open access where the publisher allows it, the full publication list on the CV page, and a vocabulary you are welcome to cite, build on, and contribute to.
How to get started
Three guidelines you can try.
If you want to try nonclusive design in your own work, start here. Each guideline gathers a handful of moves, the design acts and text acts you can make, and shows each one through real examples: photographs from streets and buildings, and sentences from policy texts.
Categorise the environment, not the body or the person Rooms, sizes, and mechanisms can be sorted and labelled freely. People can not, without cost. Photo to the right: Photo below: A sign about strong scents that starts from variation: no condition named, no icon, no group singled out. See examples → 
Meet variation with variation Human variation is the starting point. Answer it with forms, heights, and routes that already contain the difference. Photo to the right: Photo below: A round table with unmarked gaps where anyone can pull up. No designated place, just an invitation to the table. See examples → 
The newsletter
Short essays about design beyond “us” and “them”.
The newsletter is where I explore new themes, write short essays, and talk about our research. It is on LinkedIn, because of the conversation in the comments. Subscribe. Join in.
Say "I Already Belong" And The Conditional Access Paradigm Crumbles
Lately, I’ve been trying to work through the consequences of the statement “I already belong”.
Read this edition
Design Can Protect and Support Dignity, But Not Create It
Every person has inherent worth and dignity simply by being born. It exists whether or not design acknowledges it. But every design decision can either recognise and support that existing dignity, or undermine and violate it.
The Lazarus Door – What Inclusion Actually Is
I recently saw Wake Up Dead Man – A Knives Out Mystery. It was a good film, and one thing in particular stayed with me: the Lazarus door to the Wicks' mausoleum. It took me until the day after to figure out why I couldn't let go of that do…
Spring Challenge – Can You Photograph Belonging?
It is springtime in Sweden, and we are starting to spend more time outside. I have a challenge for you. The next time you go for a walk, look at the spaces around you, and try to photograph belonging. And if you travel, you naturally pay m…
The Sign My Mind Added
I was presenting at a workshop on accessibility and universal design in museums. About twenty participants were in the room. I was in the middle of describing the entrance of the building where I had worked for years, the Ingvar Kamprad De…
Benchmarking Universal Design – Are We Looking in the Right Place?
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you started to discuss how to evaluate Universal Design and ended up discussing ramps and other accessibility features? I have. Many times.
On Being Disablised – What 57 000 Media Articles Say About Society
I made this photo collage to capture a feeling: the experience of being "disablised."
New editions land in your LinkedIn inbox. Subscribe to follow along, or browse everything I have written.
Activities you can run yourself
Workshops & experiments you can run.
Some things are better done than read. These are field exercises from my own teaching and research: a phone recording what cobblestones do to a wheelchair, a photographic question about belonging, the workshop I run in every design class. Each comes with instructions, so you can run them with your class, your team, or on your own.
- Experiment
The Phone Vibration Study
A smartphone strapped to a wheelchair records what cobblestones do to a body.
- Experiment
The 360-Degree City Walk
A city from eye height, a 360 degree bubble to explore in every direction at once.
- Experiment
The Surface Audio Recording
Pickup microphones make the difference between surfaces something you can hear.
- Exercise
Can You Photograph Belonging?
One question, a camera, and a belonging score from 1 to 5.
- Workshop
The Universal Design Photo Workshop
Photograph what aligns with or breaks with Universal Design, then compare with your colleagues’ or classmates’ examples.
Key ideas
The ideas my work revolves around.
The ideas I keep coming back to. Together, they are how I think about design, categorisation, and belonging.
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Universal Design
The field I work in: design that starts from human variation instead of adding accommodations afterwards.
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Nonclusion
Design that starts from the fact that everyone already belongs.
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Categorisation
How the sorting of people shapes (and limits) what gets designed.
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“Us” and “them”
A way to see whether a design divides people or refrains from it.
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Benchmarking Universal Design
What it would take to measure Universal Design.
Read deeper
Papers to start with, if you want the longer version.
The full publications list lives on the CV page. Start with these: where nonclusion was first articulated, where the inclusion paradigm was critiqued, and where the Activity Diamond and the harmonised Accessibility, Usability and Universal Design model were laid out. Open access where the publisher allows it.
- 01 2025
Accessibility, usability and universal design – still confusing? Harmonisation of key concepts
Disability and Rehabilitation · with Agneta Ståhl & Susanne Iwarsson
The three-layer harmonised AUUD model. The conceptual ground for both ongoing projects.
- 02 2024
The problem with “inclusion”? It is done to someone by someone
Universal Design 2024 (IOS Press) · with Stina Ericsson
The structural critique of inclusion. Inclusion is a doing, not a state; the categorisation step is upstream of the gesture.
- 03 2024
Disablised or Ablised? Linguistic categorisations of dis/ability in Swedish print media over time
Disability Studies Quarterly · with Daniel Wojahn & Stina Ericsson
A forty-year study of 57,000 articles. Vocabulary churn, paradigm intact. The empirical anchor for the disablised concept.
- 04 2022
Towards 3rd generation universal design: exploring nonclusive design
Studies in Health Technology and Informatics · with Margaret Price, Johnna Keller & Stina Ericsson
The first appearance of nonclusion in print. The foundational paper for everything that comes after.
- 05 2009
The Activity Diamond: Modeling an enhanced accessibility
PhD thesis · Certec, Lund University
The four-vertex model that grounded the planned/lived distinction sixteen years before WCAG 3 reached for it.
About
Hi, I’m PeO. 👋
I am Per-Olof Hedvall, PhD and Professor of Design at Mid Sweden University. I study categorisations of “us” and “them” in design and policy, and how accessibility, usability, and Universal Design can help us move beyond that sorting.
This site is a space for sharing resources, thinking aloud, and connecting dots with other people. Here, you can explore my research, teaching, and public engagement.