Opportunities and Challenges of Digital Technologies for Inclusion

Digital technologies are profoundly changing our daily life and our society more in general. This transformation brings new opportunities and challenges also in terms of inclusion. Indeed, some technologies can present barriers in terms of adoption and accessibility; for this reason, it is important to elaborate new methodologies that can guide the design process in order to be more inclusive. At the same time, digital services and products can empower citizens to fight social exclusion, or to assist people with disabilities for enabling them to perform activities that they have not been able to do before, or to increase participation of disadvantaged people in social and economic activities. This paper shows the current trends in terms of design applied to digital technologies and highlights the importance and urgency of this topic calling all researchers from academia and industry for action to leverage “design for all” methods in order to increase inclusion in our connected world.