Medically, disability is defined as a permanent and limiting trait, that occurs when a person deviates from the norm. The views of inclusive design are different: rather than being a trait, a disability is a mismatch between our needs and the design. For example, if a child with ADHD is not focusing in a classroom, their ADHD would take the initial blame. However, inclusive design believes the issue lies in the unsuitable environment. From this viewpoint, it becomes the responsibility of the designer to solve the mismatch. This perspective allows us to see that, through design, the mismatch is solvable. This is also known as the social model of disability, where limits lie in social norms rather than disabilities. Mismatch is also recognized as a result of factors such as: context, environment, learning styles, unique personal needs and hardware and software variations. A person with broken speakers, no headset in a library experiences the same disability as a deaf person trying to watch a video with no captions.
