UX is Design: Welcome Ally

Meet Ally. You might think you don’t know her, but she is everywhere.

Right now, Ally is in a crowded subway, balancing a sleeping toddler on one arm while trying to check her grocery list on a phone with the other. She is frustrated because the buttons are too small to tap with a single thumb. This is Ally in a situational limit.

Next week, you’ll see Ally again. She’s at her desk, typing with one hand because her other arm is in a sling after a minor cycling accident. This is Ally in a temporary limit.

Fast forward thirty years. Ally is sitting in a sunlit room, her hands slightly shaking and her vision blurred by the natural passage of time. She struggles to read the low-contrast text on her tablet. This is Ally in a permanent state of limitation.

In typical product meetings, Ally is often dismissed as an “edge persona.” But let’s be clear: being “on the edge” doesn’t mean being minor or unimportant. Ally is actually the default persona of human reality. As Krystian observes: “Inclusive design is something a designer does subconsciously at every step—many just don’t realize it yet.” We often imagine a “standard” user—young, able-bodied, and focused. We design for this perfection, but Ally (and the 2.2 billion like her) constantly faces digital barriers we never intended to build. Therefore, we must welcome Ally into the heart of our process.

What’s inside

• The many faces of Ally: why the “average user” is a dangerous myth supported by data.
• The spectrum of abilities: understanding that Ally’s needs today are your needs tomorrow.
• POUR: moving from a digital checklist to a universal philosophy of human interaction.
• AI in UX: how AI transforms from a simple auditor into Ally’s personal translator.
• PAD 2025: why the new European-driven regulations are just a formalization of the expected.
• Glossary of terms: key concepts for the inclusive designer.

The myth of the “standard human”

In the design studio, we love averages. We look at mean ages, median incomes, and typical device usage. But in reality, the “average user” doesn’t exist. That is precisely why we use personas: to cut through the noise of statistics and see the real people behind the data. We need to visualize their struggles, their contexts, and their unique ways of interacting with the world.

According to the World Health Organization (2023), 2.2 billion people—nearly a third of the planet—have vision impairments.¹ In the European Union, roughly 27% of the population lives with some form of disability. In Poland, official reports suggest 12.2% of the population faces challenges, but the real number is significantly higher. Between underreporting and the invisible nature of cognitive or early-stage sensory limits, the “standard human” is the true outlier.

Crucially, disability is not a static identity; 83% of disabilities are acquired during our lifetimes. If we live long enough, we will all eventually become Ally. If one-third of our audience is currently struggling to use our products, we aren’t just missing a “niche”—we are failing our core mission.

If a design doesn’t work for Ally, it doesn’t work as expected; and if it doesn’t work as expected, it is a broken design.

The spectrum: Ally’s changing the world

To design for Ally, we must adopt the spectrum of abilities framework (famously championed by Microsoft).² This approach resembles the modern understanding of the autism spectrum or neurodiversity: it’s not a linear scale from “low” to “high” but a vast landscape of human variability. Just as we’ve learned that there is no “standard” brain, we must accept there is no “standard” physical or situational state.

This framework moves us away from the binary of “disabled vs. healthy” and toward a more fluid understanding of human context: permanent, temporary, and situational.

When we solve for the person with one arm, we inadvertently solve for the parent and the injured traveler. This is the multiplier effect. By designing for the “limit,” we create a better experience for everyone. Think of the curb-cut effect: sidewalk ramps designed for wheelchairs are used by everyone with strollers or suitcases. Helping Ally isn’t an act of charity—it’s an act of optimization. When we design for the edges, we define the center.

POUR: a universal philosophy

To bridge the gap between design intent and Ally’s reality, we use the POUR framework. While these four pillars originate from the digital WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards,³ they represent a universal philosophy that applies to every human-object interaction:

• Perceivable: If Ally can’t see the interface, it must speak to her. Information must be transformable from light into sound or haptics. If she cannot see a change, the design must signify it through audio or vibration; otherwise, the interaction simply doesn’t exist.
• Operable: If Ally can’t interact with the interface—whether using a mouse, a keyboard, or a voice command—the digital service is essentially closed. Inaccessible interaction means the “shop” (or the app, or the tool) is out of reach for that user.
• Understandable: Cognitive accessibility is about lowering the cognitive load. If Ally has to solve a riddle to find the checkout or decode jargon to understand a feature, the architecture has failed. Clear design respects Ally’s attention by being predictable and intuitive.
• Robust: This is about technical reliability. The design must be built on a foundation of clean, standard code so it remains reliable as it is interpreted by a wide range of assistive technologies, both now and as they evolve.

POUR is the language we use to speak to Ally. It is the guarantee that our design isn’t just a pretty picture but a functional tool.

AI in UX: designing by design

We are entering a new era where accessibility is no longer a static audit. In the AIinUX process, we use the catchy framing of “designing by design” to remind ourselves to design with our heart and mind. It’s a metaphor for the realization that true intentionality—the core of human empathy and logic—is what must guide machine intelligence.

Imagine an interface that doesn’t just sit there waiting to be used but breathes and shifts to meet Ally where she is. Krystian’s vision for this is transformative: “Ally can tell the AI what her problem is—perhaps the sun is too bright on her screen, or she’s feeling overwhelmed by information—and the AI adjusts the UI for her in real time.”

This is the end of rigid design. Through AI, the product becomes a personal translator. It’s no longer about Ally trying to fit into our design; it’s about the design fitting into Ally’s life. This fluid, responsive dialogue ensures the “edge” is always at the center of the experience.

PAD 2025: formalizing the expected

In 2025, the Polish Accessibility Act (PAD/PAA)—formally adopted on April 26, 2024—came into full force.⁴ This isn’t just a local law; it is the legislative alignment of the European Accessibility Act (EAA),⁵ and for the industry, it represents the formalization of what we should have known all along.

For many companies, this feels like a sudden hurdle. But for a true designer, this regulation is simply a legal mirror of professional integrity. As Krystian notes: “If someone is a true designer, they already know these rules.” They don’t need a law to tell them that a product should be usable. However, PAD 2025 serves a vital purpose: it ends the era of accessibility as an “optional extra” and forces the industry to acknowledge that Ally is a requirement, not a choice.

Glossary of terms

• A11y: a common abbreviation for “accessibility,” where the “11” represents the number of letters between a and y.
• Assistive technology (AT): software or hardware used by people with disabilities to improve interaction with digital products (for example, screen readers, alternative keyboards).
• Cognitive load: the total amount of mental effort being used in working memory. Inclusive design seeks to minimize this for better usability.
• Curb-cut effect: the phenomenon of disability-focused design features being used and enjoyed by a much larger group of people than originally intended.
• Inclusive design: a methodology that enables and draws on the full range of human diversity.
• POUR: the four guiding principles of accessibility (perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust).
• Screen reader: a software application that enables people with severe visual impairments to use a computer by “reading” the screen content via speech or Braille.
• WCAG: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines—the international standard for digital accessibility.

Every designer is friends with Ally

Accessibility (A11y) is not a feature you add at the end of a project. It is not a secondary persona you look at if you have extra time. Accessibility is Ally herself.

She is the default persona that always exists in your designs, whether you acknowledge her or not. To be a designer is to be Ally’s friend—to advocate for her, to see the world through her eyes, and to build bridges where others have left barriers. In the age of AI-augmented design, we have the tools to make every interaction universal.

There is no middle ground. If your design isn’t for Ally, it’s not a design. It’s just broken.

Process note: This article was created using an augmented design process (AIinUX). Research was conducted with Anthropic Claude 4.5 Sonnet, while the narrative structure and editing were performed in collaboration with Google Gemini 3. Human-in-the-loop (HITL) verified.

This article originally appeared on Substack.