When developing accessible technology, the approach matters as much as the outcome. Most companies begin by designing for the broadest, most straightforward use cases, then attempt to retrofit accessibility for people with disabilities afterward. This conventional approach – what we might visualize as an upright pyramid – often leads to costly modifications, technical limitations, and experiences that feel like accommodations rather than genuine inclusion.

GoodMaps takes a fundamentally different approach: we invert the pyramid.

---

Understanding the Traditional Challenge #

The traditional product development pyramid starts with the “lowest hanging fruit” – the easiest users to serve – and attempts to expand upward toward more complex accessibility requirements. This creates several challenges:

• Retrofitting is expensive. Research consistently shows that adding accessibility to existing systems costs three to five times more than building it in from the start. As outlined in our article on Disproportionate Burden and Accessible Alternatives, legacy system modernization represents significant technical debt.
• User interface fixes can’t solve user experience problems. As we explored in Beyond Compliance: Why UI Standards Alone Won’t Meet Modern Accessibility Expectations, following Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) can make an interface accessible, but they cannot retroactively transform an underlying experience that wasn’t designed inclusively from the beginning.
• Separate solutions create inequality. When accessibility is added as an afterthought, it often results in what we call substitute services – separate experiences for people with disabilities rather than equal access to the same system. Our article Equal Access vs. Substitute Services examines why this distinction matters under frameworks like the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The Inverted Pyramid Approach #

The inverted pyramid methodology flips this conventional thinking. Instead of starting with the easiest use case, we begin with the most challenging accessibility requirement and build outward from there.

For indoor navigation, we identified our starting point: people who are blind and cannot access visual signage, printed maps, or observational wayfinding strategies that sighted users take for granted. This demographic requires:

• Sub-one-foot positioning accuracy to navigate safely and independently
• Real-time, precise directional guidance without visual reference points
• Reliable environmental awareness to identify destinations, obstacles, and decision points

Meeting these requirements meant developing a Visual Positioning System that delivers unprecedented accuracy. It meant designing audio-first navigation experiences that convey spatial information clearly and efficiently. It meant rethinking every assumption about how people navigate indoors.

The Curb-Cut Effect in Practice #

Once we established this foundation, something remarkable happened: serving other user groups became progressively easier, not harder.

This phenomenon – known as the “curb-cut effect” – demonstrates how solutions designed for people with disabilities benefit everyone. The term comes from sidewalk curb cuts, originally created for wheelchair users, which now help parents with strollers, delivery workers with carts, travelers with luggage, and countless others.

With our positioning technology and navigation framework built to serve blind users, we could readily expand to:

• People who are deaf or hard of hearing who benefit from visual navigation cues built on our already-robust spatial framework
• Wheelchair users who need accessible route planning supported by our precise positioning
• The neurodivergent community who value clear, predictable navigation experiences without overwhelming sensory information
• Older adults who may have multiple access needs supported by our flexible, multimodal approach

Each expansion required less complexity, not more, because the foundational user experience was designed inclusively from inception.

Three Pillars of Sustainable Inclusive Design #

The inverted pyramid approach rests on three interconnected principles:

1. Accuracy: Sub-one-foot (approximately 30 centimeters) precision isn’t just a technical specification – it’s the difference between independence or uncertainty for blind users. By setting our accuracy bar at this level, we ensure that every user receives navigation guidance they can trust. The CRPD calls this “access on an equal basis with others” – not approximate access, not good-enough access, but truly equal access.
2. Sustainability: This operates on two levels. Environmentally, our computer vision approach avoids the need for extensive physical infrastructure installations, reducing electronic waste and minimizing resource use. From a user experience perspective, sustainability means creating solutions that work universally rather than requiring specialized adaptations for different disability communities. This aligns with the CRPD’s definition of universal design: “the design of products, environments, programmes and services to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.”
3. Scalability: Inclusive navigation must work consistently across diverse environments – hospitals, airports, universities, retail centers, government buildings. This consistency enables people with disabilities to navigate confidently in unfamiliar spaces, supporting what the CRPD defines as “personal mobility with the greatest possible independence.” When the core experience is universally designed, scaling across venues becomes a technical challenge rather than a fundamental redesign for each new location.

Beyond Compliance: Inclusion as Foundation #

The inverted pyramid represents a philosophical shift from viewing accessibility as a compliance requirement to recognizing it as a design foundation. Compliance frameworks – including the ADA, the European Accessibility Act (EAA), and WCAG – establish important minimum standards. But true inclusion goes beyond checking boxes.

When we design for disability first, we create technology that:

• Serves diverse needs without requiring “special” accommodations
• Improves continuously because accessibility is central to the product architecture
• Scales economically because inclusive design is baked into the foundation, not retrofitted later
• Benefits all users through the curb-cut effect

This approach embodies what the CRPD calls the social model of disability – the recognition that barriers are created by design choices, not by individual needs. When we invert those design choices, we eliminate barriers before they’re built.

The Wide-Open Summit #

At the top of a traditional pyramid, space narrows until only a select few fit. At the top of an inverted pyramid, space expands until everyone fits comfortably.

This is the ultimate goal: not to squeeze people with disabilities into spaces designed for others, but to create expansive experiences where the full diversity of human navigation needs – and human experience – is accommodated naturally from the start.

The inverted pyramid isn’t just a development methodology. It’s a commitment to centering the voices and needs of people with disabilities in the design process, reflecting the principle “nothing about us, without us.” It’s a recognition that when we design for the most complex accessibility requirements first, we create better solutions for everyone.

---

A Replicable Framework #

While GoodMaps applies this approach to indoor navigation, the inverted pyramid methodology translates to any domain where inclusive design matters. The core insight remains constant: beginning with the most challenging accessibility requirements leads to more robust, more innovative, and more genuinely inclusive solutions than retrofitting ever could.

Technology built from accessibility’s hardest challenges creates universal benefit. As more organizations adopt this framework, accessibility will transform from a late-stage consideration into the foundation of innovation – not because it’s required, but because it creates better outcomes for all.