---
title: "Human factors and accessibility – designing beyond protected characteristics"
url: "https://www.systra.com/ireland/expert_insights/human-factors-and-accessibility-designing-beyond-protected-characteristics/"
type: expert_insights
date_published: 2025-04-16
date_modified: 2025-04-17
schema:
  @type: WebPage
language: en-IE
word_count: 1212
reading_time: 7 min
canonical: "https://www.systra.com/ireland/expert_insights/human-factors-and-accessibility-designing-beyond-protected-characteristics/"
featured_image: "https://www.systra.com/ireland/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2025/04/human-factors-and-accessibility-designing-beyond-protected-characteristics-featured-image.png"
type-insight:
  - Human Factors
---

# Human factors and accessibility – designing beyond protected characteristics

![Zoomed in photo on priority seat on train. The seat is blue and has a colourful pattern on it that shows various examples of people that require usage of the seat for accessibility reasons - for example a pregnant person, person with a sling, person with a walking stick, person carrying a baby.](https://www.systra.com/ireland/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2025/04/human-factors-and-accessibility-designing-beyond-protected-characteristics-featured-image.png)

**Human Factors (HF) is often thought of as ’all about the individual’; what they do, how they feel, why they did or didn’t do something.**

However, this only matters with the added context of where individuals sit
within a wider system. In application HF is much broader. It considers how
people interact with their working environment, with other people, with
technology and within their organisation. Our
[Human Factors](https://www.systra.com/ireland/services/systems-approach/human-factors-ergonomics-in-transport/)
team are experienced in working with different user groups to identify and
capture their wants and needs from the system in which they sit.

This article reports on a ’Design for Accessibility’ piece of work that the UK
HF team presented at a Design for Safety event at Heathrow Airport (London). It
also discusses how HF can go even further in supporting accessibility and
inclusion, by thinking beyond the protected ’known’ characteristics and
questioning existing constraints that prevent a wider demographic of people from
performing certain tasks or job roles.

### WHAT IS ACCESSIBILITY?

When it comes to people, there is no such thing as ’normal.’ Historically,
accessibility has been a term used to describe the systems, products and
services that are designed to be usable by those with disabilities. In this
context, disabilities have been thought of by designers as a personal health
condition. With this approach, design solutions can easily be viewed as
’inclusive’ or ’exclusive’ , with inclusive design being where we want to get
to. 

Taking a forward-thinking approach, accessibility relates to a mismatch between
an individual and an interaction. Whether that be in the workplace, using public
transport, grocery shopping or changing a fuse at home. This definition allows
us to explore how any one person can experience a mismatch at one time in their
life and promotes that accessible design is good design for all (Figure 1).

“By designing for someone with a permanent disability, someone with a
situational limitation can also benefit. For example, a device designed for a
person who has one arm could be used just as effectively by a person with a
temporary wrist injury or a new parent holding an infant” – Microsoft Inclusive
Design

![A simple graphic depiction of permanent, temporary and situational impairment examples.](https://www.systra.com/uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2025/04/human-factors-and-accessibility-insight-fig-1.png)

_Figure 1. Permanent, temporary and situational impairment (Microsoft Inclusive Design, 2022)_

### EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION (EDI)

Using the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (CIEHF) EDI
guidance definitions, equality is concerned with fairness, diversity is
concerned with representation, and inclusion is concerned with involvement. The
CIEHF guidance describes how taking a HF approach can help to mitigate some of
the specific EDI challenges arising from the protected characteristics defined
in the UK’s Equality Act (such as Age, Disability, Gender Reassignment,
Pregnancy and Maternity). Not only this, but the guidance outlines how more can
be done to look beyond protected characteristics (such as socio-economic
backgrounds), to recognise ’hidden disabilities’ (such as colour blindness) and
to recognise capability loss (such as dexterity, mobility and reach).

As HF specialists it is important that we continue to push the agenda on
thinking beyond protected characteristics, to get a truer representation of the
requirements for end users.

### INSTILLING EMPATHY IN DESIGNERS

It can be challenging to empathise with users whose attributes, and the
experiences attached to them, are so different from our own; but the biggest
step change is to acknowledge that they exist. We need to challenge our
assumptions, inform our clients and encourage designers to explore the ’unknown
unknowns’ at the earliest stage in the design lifecycle. 

For the Design for Safety event at Heathrow we put together an empathy toolkit
for stakeholders. The purpose of the toolkit is to enable stakeholders to
quickly understand the difficulties faced by people with accessibility
mismatches and how early consideration and intervention can mitigate the risk of
exclusion. 

The toolkit includes: 

- 10 pairs of spectacles (Figure 2); simulating the most common symptoms of the
  most common eye conditions (e.g., tunnel vision, loss of visual acuity,
  retinal degeneration)
- Safety gloves; typically warn in safety critical environments such as railway
  maintenance
- Darning needle and thread

![A photo of a small meeting room. There is a TV screen showing a SYSTRA branded presentation that is titled 'Design for accessibility'. The round table in front is full of items such as a needle and thread, plastic bottle, gloves and laptop.](https://www.systra.com/uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2025/04/human-factors-and-accessibility-insight-meeting-room-photo.jpg)

We asked attendees on the day to perform a task as simple as threading a needle.
Volunteers were asked to perform this in three different conditions:

- Thread the needle;
- Thread the needle wearing safety gloves; and 
- Thread the needle wearing safety gloves and a pair of vision impairment
  spectacles. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the time required to perform this dexterous task
increased with each layer of complexity. Not only was this approach engaging,
but it also provoked discussion and allowed stakeholders to link these
mismatches to their own working life and to the working lives of those whom they
design for. Stakeholders could relate their frustrations to their own
experiences (such as ill-fitting PPE that has not been designed for women) and
to invisible impairments (such as a sensory loss of touch.) It also helped to
demonstrate how individuals may have more than one impairment and that multiple
impairment can exacerbate the challenges that they face.

### LET’S NOT BE CONSTRAINED BY HISTORIC DESIGN

So often we are constrained by what came before. In other words, designing ’how
it has always been done’ and ’for a demographic of people who have always done
it’. This affects everything, from the job design itself, to the written
processes supporting the job, and the equipment that is used to perform the
work. Designs today are all based on the evolution trajectory of what came
before. We are missing a trick by not considering how we can get more people
doing more things!

### Conclusion

Designing for accessibility should not be a tick box exercise to meet minimum
legal requirements for protected characteristics. It should proactively design
for mismatches between individuals and interactions that will benefit all end
users, not just those who have a permanent impairment. Empathy is a key driver
in demonstrating challenges that individuals face and how our design input can
mitigate those challenges. The more we can adopt this approach and educate
stakeholders in the design process, the better the end solutions will be for
accessibility, equality, diversity and inclusion. 

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