Many firms hear ‘inclusive design’ and think accessibility. Or they think it is a user experience (UX) exercise. It is neither. Inclusive design is a methodology for making services work for vulnerable customers, and for all customers who use them.
There is a version of inclusive design that has become familiar in digital and product teams. It usually centres on accessibility: making sure a website works with screen readers, a form is navigable by keyboard, a document meets WCAG standards. This matters. But it is not what we mean when we talk about inclusive design for vulnerable customers.
The Inclusive Design Delehanty Consulting practices starts with the customer, not the interface. It asks what happens when a person in a vulnerable situation tries to use your service. Not your website. Your service. The end-to-end customer journey, from first contact through to resolution, including every handoff, decision point, and moment of friction along the way
Why this matters more than accessibility alone
A vulnerable customer may be able to navigate your website perfectly well and still have a terrible experience of your service. They may call your contact centre and be asked to repeat painful information three times because your systems do not carry it throughout the journey or into other products. They may be sent a letter they cannot act on because it assumes a level of financial literacy they do not have. They may trigger a collections process that does not recognise their circumstances until it is too late.
These are not accessibility failures. They are service design failures. They happen when customer journeys are designed for the average customer and never tested against the reality of vulnerability. .
How it works
Inclusive Design has four stages: Discover, Design, Test, and Launch. Each stage delivers standalone value. Together, they create change that is designed to become your way of working.
In the Discover stage, we carry out vulnerable customer journey mapping alongside the people who live and deliver the experience. This means co-discovery with vulnerable customers and the colleagues who serve them. We use lived experience discovery, colleague workshops, and a range of solicited and unsolicited insight sources to build a clear view of the journey from the vulnerable customer’s perspective: where the gaps are and what needs to change.
In the Design stage, we ideate solutions with the same people. Not in a workshop room removed from reality, but grounded in the evidence from the Discover stage. The output is a ranked set of changes designed to close needs gaps in vulnerable customer journeys.
In the Test stage, with the same people, we start with basic prototypes and evolve them together until the customer, colleagues, and commercial impact are sufficiently proven to commit to a full build. This replaces assumptions with evidence and mitigates risk. It also builds confidence across the organisation that the changes will work.
In the Launch stage, the full build is delivered and embedded into the operation. This includes closing the loop with customers and colleagues through “you said, we did” stories that demonstrate the change was real and lasting.
Designing services for vulnerable customers benefits everyone
One of the most consistent findings across our work is that vulnerability-led service design improves the experience for all customers, not only those in vulnerable circumstances. When you remove unnecessary friction, simplify communications, and build flexibility into processes, every customer benefits.
This is the commercial case for Inclusive Design. It is not a cost centre. It is a method for improving customer outcomes across the board, reducing complaint volumes, lowering operational cost, and building the kind of service that customers, colleagues, and commercial teams all recognise as better.
The difference between doing and embedding
We often meet firms that have run customer research, held design workshops, or piloted improvements in one part of the business. These are positive steps. But if the output sits in a presentation rather than in the live operation, it has not been embedded.
Inclusive Design is not a project. It is a way of working. The firms that get the most from it are the ones that build the methodology into how they review, design, and improve their services on an ongoing basis. When that happens, improving vulnerable customer outcomes stops being a separate initiative and starts being part of how the business operates.
The four stages are designed to be repeatable. As your business changes, as regulation evolves, as the needs of your vulnerable customers shift, the same methodology applies. Discover, Design, Test, Launch. Each time, grounded in the three sources of truth: vulnerable customers, colleagues, and data.
Let’s talk
If you want to explore what Inclusive Design could look like in your organisation, a Vulnerability Review is a good starting point. It helps you understand where you are now and where the biggest opportunities for change sit in your vulnerable customer journeys.