Championing Fairer Design

UK charity Designability has launched a major survey calling on 10,000 disabled people across the UK to take part.

The Unfair Index: Designing a Fairer Future gives disabled people the chance to share the everyday barriers they face – at home, work, online, in public spaces and in their communities.

The findings will be used to create the UK’s first Unfair Index, highlighting the most unfair barriers in everyday life, focusing on those that are urgent, harmful, and possible to fix through better design.

 “At the moment I’m being met with performative talk, people say they will do it but they don’t,” said Saida, a powered wheelchair user taking part in the survey.

“We don’t want slow changes. We want to live like everyone else. Why does it have to be an add-on thought? I’m a human being. Treat me like one and I’ll treat you like one.”

The project has been co-designed with a pan-disability Lived Experience Advisory Panel, made up of people with a wide range of experiences and impairments, ensuring disabled people’s voices are central.

“Millions of disabled people face barriers every day that stop them fully participating in daily life,” said Jim Bowes, Chief Executive of Designability, Designability, a charity focused on inclusive design, innovation, and improving accessibility for people with disabilities.

“Whether that’s financially, socially or academically, we’ve designed the world to be unfair for so many people – and we believe with good design we can do better. This survey is about listening at scale and then identifying what practical solutions could make a real difference to everyday barriers.”

The Unfair Index survey covers a wide range of areas, including health and wellbeing, life at home and managing money, getting out and about, social and community life, technology and learning and work.

The survey is one of the largest of its kind in the UK. The findings will help Designability shape its priorities over the next three to five years and provide actionable insights for designers, organisations, and policymakers — challenging people to think, design and build differently.

Where barriers fall outside the charity’s expertise, insights will be shared with other companies and organisations to help drive wider societal change.

“We know some of the barriers raised will need policy change or wider behaviour change,” said Jim.

“Where that’s the case, we’ll make sure the evidence is shared with those best placed to act, so it can still help drive real-world change. The scale of unfairness means action is needed now."

Disabled people, people who are neurodiverse, unpaid carers and parents of disabled children across the UK are now being invited to take part in the survey until the end of April and share their experiences to help inform future action.

The Unfair Index will be published later in 2026. To find out more visit https://designability.org.uk/