Mismatch

Kat Holmes, named one of Fast Company's “Most Creative People in Business” in 2017, is founder of Mismatch.design, a firm with the mission of advancing inclusive education and resources. She served as the Principal Director of Inclusive Design at Microsoft from 2014 to 2017, and led that company's executive program for inclusive product innovation. As an executive at Google and, currently, Salesforce, Holmes continues to advance inclusive development for some of the most influential technologies in the world. An internationally recognized leader at the intersection of design and technology, John Maeda is Executive Vice President/Chief Experience Officer at Publicis Sapient. He was the 16th President of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). He is the author of Design by Numbers, The Laws of Simplicity, and Redesigning Leadership, all published by The MIT Press.

"Kat Holmes shows us how to make inclusion a source of innovation. An important read for anyone who aspires to build great products for the greatest number of people." – Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft "Design shapes our human experience. As software changes our world, inclusive thoughtful design will be even more important. In this absorbing and important book, Kat Holmes lays out clear steps and the role we can each play to overcome bias and create inclusive design." – Victoria A. Espinel, CEO of BSA | The Software Alliance "Kat Holmes’s approachable book, Mismatch, calls to tech industry leaders and designers to create inclusion by making a world that invites all of us to participate and benefits everyone. Designing for the future, Holmes convinces, requires designing for human diversity. Mismatch is a manifesto, a primer, and a rousing invitation for everyone in the design and production process to become inclusion experts who will collectively make a better, more effective, and more just world for us to share." – Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Professor of English and Bioethics at Emory University, author of Extraordinary Bodies and Staring: How We Look "Design at its best gladdens our lives, and shapes the way we experience the world — but it can limit that experience, too. Counters may be too elevated for someone in a wheelchair, and playgrounds built solely for able-bodied children a trial for those who can neither run nor climb. Even a magical faucet, built to flow at the wave of a hand, is ill suited for the blind. In Mismatch, a crusading and important look at how design can frustrate and even alienate users, Kat Holmes compels us to be more inclusive. She shows us that design requires not only ingenuity but humility. It must solve problems, yes, but it must also work with those excluded to reimagine and improve their experiences." – Caroline Baumann, Director, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

• ForewordCH 1WelcomeCH 2Shut In, Shut OutCH 3The Cycle of ExclusionCH 4Inclusive DesignersCH 5With and ForCH 6MatchmakingCH 7There's No Such Thing as NormalCH 8Love StoriesCH 9Inclusion is Designing the FutureNotesSuggested ReadingsAcknowledgementsIndex