Design Conversations: Bryce Johnson

Bryce Johnson: Recognize Exclusion, Design for Inclusion

Inclusion, accessibility, and justice are unavoidable terms in debates on design and technology today. It has become clear that fostering belonging requires overcoming design’s perceived innocence — admitting historical and contemporary cases where design accidentally or purposefully excludes — to formulate more deliberate positions on designers’ role in shaping collective life. More than an effort to incorporate neglected populations within existing paradigms, today’s leaders work to reinvent design and technology to promote alternative methodologies, knowledges, and ways of life. From racist bots to #metoo, the urgency of this reinvention has only become more apparent.

This Spring, the Jacobs Institute will continue investigating these ideas through our Design Conversations series, "For Whom? By Whom? Designs for Belonging," which invites three leading design thinkers to outline design’s blind spots and exclusions, and share their thoughts on possibilities for a future of belonging.

Bryce Johnson has been designing accessible experiences in technology for over 15 years. As the Inclusive Lead for Microsoft Devices, he is devoted to ensuring Microsoft products are accessible to all users. Bryce was part of the core team at Team Xbox that started the inclusive design and accessibility practice; and has worked across Microsoft teams to launch the assistive technologies on the Xbox One, including Copilot, as well as initiated and designed the first Inclusive Tech Lab at Microsoft. Having now hosted over six thousand visitors, the Inclusive Tech Lab is a facility where people can explore how people with disabilities interact with Microsoft games, services, and devices. Bryce is one of the inventors of the Xbox Adaptive Controller, having been the lead on its project at the 2016 Microsoft One Week Hackathon.