UX designers often talk about “the user.” They build personas, map journeys, and create solutions for this singular, archetypal person. But in reality, there is no average user. The very idea is a statistical fiction.
“Today, in the digital world, we often make the same mistake. We optimize our products for the user with a flagship phone, a stable 5G connection, and a high degree of digital literacy. But the real world is messy,” reveals Tej Kalianda, a UX designer with 15 years of experience.
Kalianda shares how products optimized for the average often fail spectacularly at the edges. And yet, the edges are where innovation, inclusion, and trust are truly won.
“I believe that intentionally designing for edge cases—poor connectivity, accessibility needs, older devices, and diverse cultural contexts—is the most powerful strategy for building products that are more robust, resilient, and universally usable,” says this pioneering voice who has established a reputation for her original contributions to inclusive and responsible AI systems.
Let’s dig in, with Kalianda leading the way!
The Three Edges That Define Modern Design
To move beyond designing for the average, we must actively seek out and solve for the edges. I tend to think of these in three main categories.
1. Contextual Edges: Designing for an Imperfect World
Kalianda’s Take: This is about designing for the real world, not the pristine lab environment of a Silicon Valley campus. It means accounting for low bandwidth, noisy environments, and diverse geographies.
The Principle: A product’s value shouldn’t evaporate the moment a user steps onto a subway or drives through a rural area.
Example: Consider the success of mobile payment apps in emerging markets. An “average” design from a developed market assumes a stable 4G/5G connection for every transaction. But a service like M-Pesa in Kenya was built for the contextual edge. It was designed to work over the basic SMS protocol, allowing millions of people without data plans to transfer money reliably. This focus on a low-bandwidth context didn’t just serve a niche; it created one of the most successful mobile money systems in the world. This matters globally, as the GSMA reports that even in 2023, nearly half the world’s population still isn’t using mobile internet.
2. Human Edges: Designing for the Spectrum of Ability
Kalianda’s Take: This is about moving beyond the “able-bodied” default and embracing the full, rich spectrum of human diversity, including disabilities, the effects of aging, and neurodiversity.
The Principle: What starts as a solution for a specific disability often becomes a better experience for everyone—the “curb-cut effect.”
Example: Look at the world of gaming. The “average” gamer is often assumed to be a young person with fast reflexes and full motor control. However, designing for the human edge led to the creation of the Xbox Adaptive Controller. This highly customizable controller, built for gamers with limited mobility, didn’t just serve a specific community. It pushed the entire industry to think more inclusively about hardware and to build more robust software remapping options into their games, benefiting players who want to create custom setups for any reason.
3. Technological Edges: Designing for a Diverse Digital Ecosystem
Kalianda’s Take: This is about resisting the assumption that everyone has the latest and greatest hardware. A product’s success often depends on its ability to perform on older, less powerful, and more affordable devices.
The Principle: Designing for lower-end devices forces you to be disciplined, efficient, and focused on what truly matters.
Example: Consider Progressive Web Apps (PWAs). The “average” user might be happy to download a 200MB native app from an app store. But for a user with a low-spec phone and limited storage (a technological edge), that’s a non-starter. A PWA offers a near-native, app-like experience directly in the browser without a large download or installation. Designing a PWA is a deliberate choice to cater to this technological edge—a market that encompasses billions of users worldwide and is a key strategy for global growth.
The AI Imperative: Edges as an Ethical Safeguard
The rise of artificial intelligence amplifies both the opportunities and the risks of ignoring the edges. An AI model trained only on “majority” data will inevitably fail, and often harm, those at the margins.
We have seen this play out in the real world. Early facial recognition systems, for example, were found by researchers at MIT and others to have significantly higher error rates for women and people of color. This wasn’t a malicious choice; it was the direct result of training datasets that overrepresented white men. The “average” face in the dataset was not representative of humanity.
“In this new era, designing for the edges becomes an essential ethical safeguard against algorithmic harm. But AI can also be part of the solution,” says Kalianda. “As designers, we can use AI to simulate these edges. We can stress-test our products against a huge variety of conditions: how a voice assistant performs with poor audio and a minority dialect, or how an augmented reality feature works in a low-light environment.”
“The AI can show us what could happen at the edges. But it is the human designer who must set the intention to prioritize inclusivity and decide what matters,” she points out.
Conclusion: Future-Proofing by Design
The most resilient and successful products are not those that perfectly serve a mythical average, but those that are flexible and robust enough to accommodate the messy reality of the edges. When you design a solution that works on a spotty 2G connection, it will fly on 5G. When you design an interface that is clear to someone with a cognitive disability, it will be crystal clear to everyone.
“When you design for the edges, you don’t just protect the marginalized—you future-proof the product. Today’s “edge case” is often tomorrow’s mainstream context. By embracing the complexity of the edges, we don’t just build more inclusive technology; we build better, more innovative, and more resilient ecosystems for everyone,” concludes Kalianda.
About Tej Kalianda
Tej Kalianda is a leading UX designer and pioneering voice at the intersection of emerging technology and human-centered design. With 15 years of experience shaping products for millions of users at global technology leaders like Google, PayPal, and Citrix, she has established a reputation for her original contributions to inclusive and responsible AI systems. Her unique systems-thinking approach, blending environmental engineering and design, has had a significant impact on how the industry builds more thoughtful and accessible technology.
Got questions on your mind? You can get in touch with Tej Kalianda on LinkedIn or visit her website, www.TejKalianda.com, for more information.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the expert’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of her current or past employers.