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Accessibility & Inclusivity

How to minimize growing inequality in the age of migration - designing inclusive services

Long Lecture

🇵🇱 Polish

About

Armed conflicts, climate crisis, growing inequality. The 21st century poses global challenges, and the inevitable consequence is an increasing number of people forced to flee their countries. Over the past year, we have also witnessed this in Poland.

In our talk, we will consider how we, UX designers, can respond to these challenges in daily work. We will present the results of research conducted among refugee communities in Poland. We will look at how they access health care, public transportation, or banking in the context of technology and user experience.

We'll consider how the design - often inadvertently - excludes certain groups of users from accessing critical services. We will also share best practices and recommendations for refugee-inclusive design.

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Speakers

Photo of Agata Majos, UX Designerka i Konsultantka at Deloitte Digital

UX Designerka i Konsultantka at Deloitte Digital

Photo of Zuzanna Siodła, Senior Consultant at Deloitte Digital

Zuzanna Siodła

Senior Consultant at Deloitte Digital

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From the recording

Talk in brief

A service-design case study about migrants and refugees navigating residence, work, banking, and public administration. Interviews reveal temporary security, long waits with no deadline, repeated office visits, unclear status, and complex legal language. The proposed improvements are not cosmetic: a progress tracker, plain-language guidance, recognizable icons, and service information organized around the newcomer’s journey reduce uncertainty and dependence on informal help. Inclusive services begin by understanding the full cross-border process and the person’s prior skills, rather than treating migrants as one low-status segment or expecting them to decode the institution.

Key takeaways

01
Map the journey after crossing the border
Employment, residence, banking, and support depend on one another, so isolated service screens miss the customer’s real process.
Watch from 5:12
02
Make waiting status and next steps visible
People should not need repeated office visits to learn whether an application moved or what action is required.
Watch from 8:58
03
Use progress tracking to reduce uncertainty
A clear sequence, current state, and expected next action make a long administrative process more predictable.
Watch from 13:06
04
Organize assistance around recognizable needs
Simple language and icons help newcomers locate the right service even when they do not yet understand institutional categories.
Watch from 17:05
05
Replace legal prose with plain operational language
Short sentences and reduced jargon let people act without requiring expert translation of ordinary instructions.
Watch from 21:13

Video chapters

1:29Temporary security after enormous effort
A participant’s job and bank account illustrate how quickly essential stability can still disappear.
5:12Understanding the post-border service journey
Research follows the connected steps migrants encounter after arrival rather than one institutional touchpoint.
8:58Waiting without deadlines or information
Applicants face appeals, queues, repeated visits, and no reliable way to understand current status.
13:06A proposed administrative progress tracker
The concept makes process stages, delays, and required actions visible through one understandable view.
17:05Service guidance designed for refugees
A clear assistance model uses simple categories and icons to help people locate relevant support.
21:13Plain English compared with legal language
The comparison shows how sentence length and jargon determine whether instructions can be acted upon.
25:38Recognizing skills and status before migration
The conclusion challenges service models that reduce diverse, experienced people to a single newcomer category.

Read edited transcript highlights

These concise notes were edited from automatic captions and checked against the talk structure. They are not a verbatim transcript.

Migration creates one journey across many institutions

A person may need residence status to work, income to rent, a bank account to receive pay, and understandable guidance to complete every step. Designing one form in isolation cannot resolve that system. Journey research should follow dependencies across the border, public offices, employers, banks, and support organizations to identify where uncertainty compounds.

Watch from 5:12

Silence turns administrative waiting into harm

Applicants may wait without a deadline, appeal without knowing the next stage, and spend hours at an office only to ask for status. The institution’s internal queue becomes a personal crisis. Even when processing cannot be faster, accurate updates, expected ranges, and clear escalation paths can reduce repeated travel and allow people to plan.

Watch from 8:58

Progress tracking makes a complex process navigable

A useful tracker shows which stage is complete, what is currently happening, what information is missing, and who is responsible for the next action. It should communicate uncertainty honestly rather than invent a precise date. Notifications and accessible alternatives can then help customers respond without repeatedly checking an unfamiliar system.

Watch from 13:06

Information architecture should follow customer needs

A newcomer may not know which department owns housing, legal help, healthcare, employment, or benefits. Organize guidance around recognizable situations and use plain labels and icons as support rather than decoration. Provide language options and routes to human assistance so the service does not depend on perfect literacy or institutional knowledge.

Watch from 17:05

Plain language is a form of service access

Long sentences and legal jargon force customers to find informal translators or act on incomplete understanding. Short, direct instructions can preserve legal accuracy while stating what the person must do, which evidence is needed, and what happens next. Test the content with the people using it, including those reading in a second language.

Watch from 21:13

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