MILWAUKEE, WI – March 4, 2024 – Rockwell Automation, a global leader in industrial automation and digital transformation, is spearheading a comprehensive initiative to embed inclusive design principles across its vast product portfolio and internal operations. This strategic endeavor, detailed in the second installment of a three-part series, highlights the company’s commitment to fostering a more accessible and equitable industrial landscape, addressing diverse user needs from shop floors to control rooms. The move aligns with a growing global emphasis on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria and the recognition that inclusive design is not merely a social responsibility but a critical driver of innovation, efficiency, and safety in complex industrial environments.
The industrial automation sector, characterized by its reliance on robust equipment operating in often demanding and unpredictable conditions, presents unique challenges for inclusive design. Unlike consumer electronics, industrial solutions must function flawlessly "anywhere, anytime, and all the time," catering to a global workforce with varying physical abilities, linguistic backgrounds, and cognitive styles. This second part of Rockwell Automation’s series builds upon foundational definitions and challenges outlined previously, delving into specific solutions currently being implemented across hardware, terminology, and software design systems. The comprehensive strategy reflects a proactive approach to evolving industry standards and anticipating the needs of a diversifying workforce.
The Imperative for Inclusive Industrial Design: Beyond Compliance to Competitive Advantage
The push for inclusive design in industrial automation is underpinned by compelling demographic and economic realities. Globally, an estimated 15% of the population experiences some form of disability, according to the World Health Organization. As industrial workforces age and become more diverse, the demand for equipment and software that accommodates a wider range of human capabilities intensifies. Companies that prioritize inclusive design stand to gain significant competitive advantages, including enhanced employee retention, reduced training costs, fewer workplace accidents, and expanded market reach. A 2018 Accenture study, for instance, found that companies prioritizing disability inclusion achieved 28% higher revenue, double the net income, and 30% higher economic profit margins than their peers. For Rockwell Automation, a company managing over 400,000 individual stock-keeping units (SKUs), integrating these principles into its productization pipeline is a monumental yet essential undertaking.
Hardware Designed for All: A Deep Dive into Human Factors
Central to Rockwell Automation’s inclusive design philosophy is the meticulous consideration of diverse human factors in its hardware development. Alex Mummert, a Senior Industrial Designer at Rockwell Automation, underscores the unique demands of industrial equipment, which must withstand rigorous use in often unpredictable and rugged environments. The company’s hardware solutions are being re-engineered to support the needs of diverse users equally, including those with disabilities.
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Ergonomics and Physical Environment: Mummert emphasizes designing for the "99th percentile" to ensure products are accessible to the vast majority of users without major impediments. This involves standardizing grip points, pull forces, and space affordances. Low-fidelity ergonomic validations, such as the study evaluating an I/O module’s door-opening feature relative to nearby cables (Figure 1), are crucial in confirming appropriate space affordances for various use cases. The design process also critically assesses how products perform in cramped, poorly lit, or dirty environments, common in industrial settings. Modifications like adjusting cabling direction and maximizing the legibility of interfaces directly address these challenges, minimizing impact on day-to-day user interactions. Such ergonomic considerations are vital not only for user comfort but also for preventing repetitive strain injuries and improving overall operational efficiency, which can translate to significant cost savings for clients.
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Visual and Haptic Clarity: The clarity of indicators and user feedback is paramount in industrial settings, where quick and accurate information can prevent costly errors or safety incidents. Rockwell Automation has focused on ensuring that the most critical information is immediately noticeable, with subsequent information hierarchically presented. A significant advancement has been the development of updated wavelength guidance for LEDs to enhance proper, inclusive color affordance, particularly for users with vision impairments. Mummert highlights past issues where green and yellow LEDs had overlapping color specifications, leading to potential confusion. By refining these specifications and increasing the physical spacing between LEDs, the company ensures that users can readily discern individual indicators, even in poor visibility or when experiencing color vision deficiencies. This attention to detail ensures that, for instance, "the third indicator is flashing" is unambiguous, even in stressful situations or when indicators are clustered near other equipment. Furthermore, user-interface responsiveness is being refined to provide "distinct and consistent feedback" for actions like locking features on Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), accounting for users wearing protective gear like gloves, which can reduce tactile sensation. Testing these solutions with appropriate gear in simulated environments is a key validation step.
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Strategic Standardization: With an enormous catalog of over 400,000 SKUs, maintaining consistency in look, feel, and function across products is a continuous challenge. Mummert points out that while each product has unique demands, the overarching goal is to maintain a flexible solution that solves as many problems as possible, including those related to diverse users and impairments, without compromising product brief alignment or brand perception. The entire product lifecycle—from unpacking and commissioning to using, maintaining, and replacing—is factored into the design process to ensure long-term usability and customer satisfaction. This holistic approach to hardware design underscores Rockwell Automation’s understanding that inclusive design is an integral part of product quality and user experience.
Fostering an Inclusive Dialogue: The Evolution of Terminology
Beyond physical hardware, Rockwell Automation is tackling the pervasive issue of outdated and non-inclusive terminology that has long characterized the technology and automation industries. The challenge is particularly acute in industrial contexts, where legacy systems and entrenched practices make linguistic changes complex. However, the company recognizes that language is a fundamental component of any user interface and a critical driver of communication, especially for an increasingly diverse global employee and user base.
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Addressing Legacy Language: Elena Dunne, Senior Manager of Industry Insights and a former terminologist, has spearheaded this ambitious effort to modernize Rockwell Automation’s terminology. The initiative acknowledges that many terms, historically adopted, inadvertently alienate users and employees. The goal is to identify and replace these terms with better, inclusive alternatives. This strategy is seen as essential for fostering a welcoming environment and ensuring clear, unambiguous communication across all facets of the company’s operations and products.
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A Multi-faceted Approach: The terminology strategy has been executed through both external and internal channels. Externally, Rockwell Automation leveraged its participation in "TerminOrgs," a consortium of terminologists from large organizations, to discuss and validate potential alternative terms. The company actively engaged with standards organizations, partners, and customers who shared similar concerns, fostering a collaborative approach to industry-wide change. To broadly disseminate its efforts, Rockwell Automation launched a blog and a dedicated webpage (Figure 2) showcasing preferred inclusive alternatives, an ever-evolving resource covering subdomains like cybersecurity, motion control, and software programming. The company has also brought these discussions to prominent industry events, including its annual Automation Fair® tradeshow, where "Bold Conversations" roundtables have focused on inclusive terminology and design for two consecutive years.
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Impact of Language: Internally, proactive and transparent communication has been paramount. A Terminology Review Board ensures broad employee engagement, utilizing internal newsletters, Yammer, SharePoint sites, and team meetings to keep staff informed and involved. A cross-functional working group leads five distinct workstreams: identifying problematic terms, defining alternatives, securing approval, implementing changes, and measuring their impact. This structured approach ensures that the initiative is integrated into the company’s productization pipeline, with UX and product-development representatives actively engaged. The newly formed Inclusive Design and Accessibility function, led by Amber, is specifically tasked with building proactive checks into the development process to prevent inclusive-design and accessibility issues before they arise. This reflects a strategic understanding that language, far from being a superficial concern, deeply impacts user comprehension, cultural inclusivity, and ultimately, product usability and market acceptance.
Building Accessibility In: The Flourish Design System’s Role
Recognizing the immense difficulty and cost associated with retrofitting accessibility into decades-old industrial software solutions, Rockwell Automation has strategically shifted its focus to proactive integration. A cornerstone of this strategy is the Flourish Design System (Figure 3), an internal platform designed to embed accessibility best practices and patterns from the ground up into all new software development.
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Proactive vs. Reactive: Jonathon Gulbrandsen, Design System Leader at Rockwell, emphasizes the transition from reactive fixes to proactive design. The strategy prioritizes foundational accessibility features that offer broad benefits. This approach ensures that every new component and application built using Flourish inherently incorporates accessible design, streamlining development and preventing future compliance issues.
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Key Pillars: Contrast Ratios and Keyboard Accessibility: Gulbrandsen highlights two initial priorities: ensuring proper contrast ratios within all common components and robust keyboard accessibility. The decision to prioritize keyboard accessibility was a "win-win," easily sold to business leaders by demonstrating its benefits for all users, including power users. Automation engineers and system designers, often considered "power users" of immersive integrated design environments (IDEs) like Rockwell’s FactoryTalk® Design Studio™, frequently prefer keyboard navigation for speed and efficiency, reducing physical and cognitive strain over long workdays. This aligns the needs of users with impairments with the productivity demands of core users. For contrast ratios, the Flourish team has built a requirement into its component-design process to ensure compliance with at least AA WCAG 2.1 standards for graphics and UI components, striving for AAA standards for text. This commitment to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliance is a clear signal to leadership and product managers about meeting modern web standards and building customer confidence.
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Future-Proofing Development: The integration of accessibility into the design system is an ongoing commitment. Every component within the Flourish documentation site includes a dedicated accessibility section, ready for expansion as capabilities evolve. Furthermore, Rockwell Automation is developing a themeable design system, which will allow products to offer various visual presentations, such as dark or high-contrast themes. This flexibility will cater to broader audiences and diverse visual preferences, further enhancing accessibility and user experience across the product ecosystem. By embedding these principles into the very foundation of its software development, Rockwell Automation is not only addressing current needs but also future-proofing its digital offerings for evolving accessibility requirements and user expectations.
Broader Industry Implications and Future Outlook
Rockwell Automation’s multi-faceted commitment to inclusive design represents a significant step forward for the industrial automation sector. By establishing best practices for hardware design, modernizing terminology, and embedding accessibility into its core design systems, the company is not only enhancing its own product usability and employee experience but also setting a precedent for the industry.
- Competitive Edge and Market Impact: This proactive stance positions Rockwell Automation as a leader in corporate social responsibility and innovation. It provides a competitive edge in attracting and retaining talent in a tight labor market and appeals to customers who increasingly prioritize partners demonstrating strong ESG credentials and a commitment to inclusivity.
- Contribution to Safety and Efficiency: The direct correlation between inclusive design elements—such as clear indicators, ergonomic interfaces, and intuitive terminology—and reduced operational errors, improved response times, and enhanced workplace safety cannot be overstated. In high-stakes industrial environments, these improvements translate directly into tangible benefits for productivity and risk mitigation.
- Setting a New Standard: As Rockwell Automation continues to share its journey, as exemplified by this article series and public resources, it has the potential to influence broader industry standards and encourage other manufacturers to adopt similar inclusive practices. This collective shift can elevate the overall accessibility and usability of industrial technology, benefiting a global workforce.
The alignment of Rockwell Automation’s diverse industrial-automation experiences with the needs of a global and diverse user base is an ongoing, evolving effort. The foundations now firmly in place—from hardware design principles and terminology modernization to comprehensive design system integration—are designed to sustain this commitment for years to come. The next installment, Part 3, is expected to delve into additional activities and solutions, including external web presence, localization efforts, and other software standards, further solidifying Rockwell Automation’s pioneering role in creating a truly inclusive industrial future.
