07-17-2026IMPACT COUNCIL

Designing for the edges improves the center

When products work for people with the most constraints, they tend to work better for everyone.

[Photo: Getty Images]

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of top leaders and experts who pay dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership, and more.

In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act mandated curb cuts at intersections across the country. The requirement was specific: Wheelchair users needed a ramp from sidewalk to street. What happened next was probably unexpected. Cyclists used the cuts. Parents with strollers used them. Delivery workers with hand trucks. Travelers with rolling luggage. A design solution created for a specific need ultimately became the standard for everyone, because it addressed a real human constraint instead of an imaginary “average” user.

Nobody who has ever rolled a suitcase down a city block thinks of curb cuts as accommodation. They are just how intersections work now. That shift, from specific solution to universal standard, is the pattern worth understanding.

Most products are built around a central idea of the user: capable, focused, operating under reasonably favorable conditions. That definition makes design manageable. It narrows the problem and creates a stable reference point for decisions. It also means the product is optimized for conditions that many people encounter only some of the time. When those conditions........

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