Inclusive: A Microsoft Design Toolkit — The Persona Spectrum and 'Solve for One, Extend to Many'

Inclusive: A Microsoft Design Toolkit, developed under Kat Holmes (Microsoft's principal director of inclusive design 2014–2017), packages inclusive design as three principles: recognise exclusion, learn from diversity, and solve for one, extend to many. Its Persona Spectrum tool expands a conventional persona across permanent, temporary and situational limitations; Microsoft's own example is upper-limb loss versus a temporary injury or a parent holding a baby.
The materials, including Inclusive 101 and activity cards, are published free online. Microsoft positions them to complement, not replace, existing design processes, and names three benefits: increased access, reduced friction and richer emotional context. Holmes later expanded the ideas in the MIT Press book Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design.
Caveats: the sources describe the method and its intent but publish no controlled evaluation or product-level outcome data, and the quoted prevalence figures are US estimates from the vendor. It is best read as a widely used practice framework rather than a proven intervention.

Read the full analysis: https://inclusive.microsoft.design/articles/inclusive-101-guidebook