<aside> 🦎 What can accessible design look like? It’s not always about contrast-checking and font-size enlarging. Accessible design is about finding innovative solutions to create products for all, whether it’s an app on your phone or the toys kids play with. Meet Clixo, the children’s toy made of flexible unique 2D shapes and magnets that allow kids of all ages to create fantastical 3D designs. Clixo’s accessible design creates a toy that appeals to a wide range of ages and abilities and encourages kids to express their creativity through play.
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Video showcasing the shapes and creations Clixo can build
Video showcasing the shapes and creations Clixo can build
The use of magnets in designs such as Apple’s Smart Cover for the iPad has been praised for increasing accessibility for users. Clixo is another example in which magnets enhance the appeal of a product and expand the product’s audience. Clixo’s magnets and flexible building blocks make it so anyone of any age and ability can enjoy building and constructing from their imagination.
<aside> 🦎 “For many with visual and motor impairments, the presence of magnets to attach and detach certain elements may very well be the difference between inaccessibility and accessibility.”
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Clixo’s accessible nature inherently makes it a more equitable toy because people of all ages and abilities benefit from its inclusive design. The article discusses an important point in which it claims that “good design is inclusive design”. A more inclusive product designed with specific needs in mind benefits a larger pool of individuals, making it more successful product.
<aside> 🦎 There is no wrong way to play with Clixo!
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Another really important point discussed by the article is the fact that Clixo isn’t a toy dedicated to children with disabilities. If the toy were developed and marketed as such, the toy could “perpetuate stigma and inequality”. Instead, Clixo broadens its audience so siblings and friends of varying abilities can still play together, with each participant being able to express their creativity without feeling they cannot keep up with their playmates.
The different shapes that can be found in a Clixo set
<aside> 🦎 “My creations strive to embody the principles and values I have discovered in my decades of working within the toy industry and teaching design, such as tapping into children’s natural creativity and curiosity, learning by experimenting, and promoting nonsense, humor, and communication through play”
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Play is universal to kids and important to their development. Through promoting this experience, Clixo shows that designing for inclusivity shouldn’t be a box to check during your design process. Instead, by considering inclusivity at every stage of designing, your product can become more democratic and as useful as possible.