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Building inclusive products for trans people

Chiara Angori shares some great tips for building products that don’t exclude your trans users.

Some are obvious, such as allowing users to specify their pronouns, and not asking users for their ‘title’ (Mr, Mrs, etc). Titles have no legal bearing and there’s almost never a good reason to ask for them. Even offering a get out option like “Prefer not to say” can be problematic, as some user research towards the end of the article demonstrates. Participants were worried that that option sounds “almost accusatory” and also that they were worried they’d be discriminated against for choosing it.

If asking for something sensitive like sex, e.g. in a medical context, offer three options (male, female and intersex) and provide details around why you’re asking for it. The article shows a screenshot of how the NHS app approaches this.

If you need to know a user’s legal name (or birth name), provide users a way to set their ‘preferred name’, so that trans individuals who have not yet changed their name legally can specify the name they should now be referred by. Give users options to keep their legal name confidential.

Consider enabling ‘discreet’ notifications, e.g. the Trans Memo app that helps trans people track their intake of hormones. This app enables users to replace notification text with something of their choosing, so that anyone who happens to see their notification on a lock screen etc won’t be able to easily understand what is being notified about.

Well worth a read.

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