I love toilet signs. They say so much about our society and the way people think.
We even did a study about different strategies people use to realise inclusive ambitions on signs on toilet doors [1].
Three Ways To Depict Diversity
In the study, we analysed about a hundred photos of toilet doors collected as part of our research* on categorisation and identified three strategies.
1. Additive – Inclusion by Adding
Inclusive signage is accomplished by adding pictograms of different persons (left photo). The door has four pictograms depicting a person in a wheelchair, a man, a woman, and a mother changing diapers. The strategy is additive, where inclusion is achieved by adding more and more pictograms to the door.
3. Combinatory – Inclusion by Combining
Inclusive signage is accomplished by composite pictograms (middle photo). The sign says “Toilets” and carries an all-gender pictogram. The sign deliberately moves beyond pinpointing separate genders, but it still categorises gender. The strategy is combinatory, where inclusion is achieved by creating a composite sign combining elements usually found as separate pictograms, e.g., “man”, “woman”, “transgender”.
3. Nonclusive – Nonclusion Instead of Inclusion
Nonclusive signage is accomplished by depicting, e.g., function instead of persons, bodies, or roles (right photo). The sign depicts a water closet with handrails. The strategy is nonclusive [2], showing a shift in categorisation and design practice. Instead of describing who is meant to use the facilities, the sign describes the facilities. What kind of room is it? Is it a broom closet or a toilet? If so, what’s the layout of the room and its functions? By refraining from categorising people, bodies and roles, a shift from person to function is achieved.
These aren't just different design approaches – they represent different ways of thinking about human diversity.
Towards Nonclusive Design?
The sign to the right is part of our research, where we are exploring the concept of “Nonclusive Design”:
“Nonclusive design means design that resists categorisations of bodies/roles and that does not come with predefined or presupposed limits in terms of who it is meant for.” [2]
As I have shown in several posts, the pattern of “norm and deviation” comes up again and again in our research. With nonclusion and nonclusive design, we are exploring what happens if we start from human variation [3] instead of human segmentation.
This isn't just another approach to inclusion – it's a critical discussion of the impulse to categorise bodies, persons and roles that creates exclusion in the first place. While well-intended, such categorisations lead to power being redone instead of undone.
People are differently different. Design has to acknowledge and celebrate this.
Every sign tells a story about how we see each other. What does yours say?
* This piece builds on material from our research into nonclusive design and situation-based categorisation in “The Syntax of Equality” project. Some images were submitted as part of citizen science studies on inclusion and exclusion, and some we took ourselves as part of observational studies.
For a detailed academic exploration of these ideas, start here:
- Hedvall, P. O., Johansson, S., & Ericsson, S. (2022). Moving Beyond Human Bodies on Display—Signs of a Shift in Categorisation. Drawing, Accessibility, Inclusion (DAI2022).
- Hedvall, P.-O., Price, M., Keller, J., & Ericsson, S. (2022). Towards 3rd Generation Universal Design: Exploring Nonclusive Design. Transforming Our World through Universal Design for Human Development, 85–92. https://doi.org/10.3233/SHTI220824.
- Ericsson, S., & Hedvall, P. O. (2024). Situation, Non-categorisation, and Variation—Conveying Nonclusion Through Text and Image. In Difference – Sketching, Visualising and challenging Universal Design in Sweden (Vol. 19, pp. 31–50). Design for All Institute of India. http://designforall.in/?mdocs-file=2472.
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