Though accessibility and usability are both important in web architecture design, they don’t ensure inclusion. Ticking items off a checklist during a website design process doesn’t sufficiently tell the story of how people will use an online product or service. It only leads towards the path of having the interface being usable but not accessible or vice versa. However, using universal design when building a web architecture promotes a sense of inclusion by levelling people of all abilities. “Universal design is a broad-spectrum approach intended to benefit all users (Smith, p.52)”. It diffuses the boundaries between accessibility and usability so that features are neither notably accessible nor inaccessible—they simply get used by everyone, no matter their abilities (p.58). This ensures that all possible users are considered when developing the website’s architecture and that they are represented in all aspects of it to ensure diversity, inclusion and equity.

I had the opportunity to build a prototype of Library and Archives Canada’s online catalogue using Universal Design for a group assignment in my web Architecture and Design class. My task was to identify possible users of the catalogue and from there, assess their possible needs. Using Universal Design, we were able to build a prototype that accounts for each and every one of our users’ needs and ensure that it was not only accessible but usable by everyone regardless of their abilities or the task for which they would be using the website for. What I realized while doing this assignment was that when it comes to user experience, accessibility alone is not enough because though it increases functionality for a small group of users, it is at the expense of those for whom accessibility features are of no immediate use. That’s why universal design is important to consider when designing a digital architecture because it not only helps build a user experience that is true to the users but it ensures the system supports the point of views of “all” its various users. A web architecture shouldn’t hinder the users’ performance when their task does not fit the practices originally intended by the designer and that’s what universal design attempts to remedy (Alberts, 2009).