Designing for Delight: Annie Jean-Baptiste on Innovation that Sees Everyone

At NeoCon 2025, Annie Jean-Baptiste—head of Universal Product Inclusion at Google and author of Building for Everyone—delivered a keynote that was less about disruption and more about intention. She made a compelling case for designing with humanity, humility, and delight in a world that too often defaults to compliance.

Jean-Baptiste urged designers to think beyond the “bare minimum” of accessibility compliance and strive to create a future where design includes and values all. “Small changes over time lead to big results,” she said, challenging the audience to think about how design can do more to include everyone.

She offered personal stories and real-world case studies that illustrated what happens when design embraces the margins—from tactile technology in sports stadiums for visually impaired fans to American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters during episodes of The Last of Us to the transformative power of a Band-Aid in a full range of skin tones.

If you design for the margins, you get the center for free.

Her guiding principle? “If you design for the margins, you get the center for free.” Curb cuts, she reminded us, were initially designed for wheelchair access. But today, everyone uses them: parents with strollers, travelers with luggage, delivery workers, skateboarders. The same applies across all fields of design.

Jean-Baptiste emphasized that innovation doesn’t require radical reinvention—it starts with asking better questions: “Who else should be in the room?” “What assumptions are we making?” “How do we co-create instead of prescribe?”

Annie Jean-Baptiste on what drives innovation now. Photo: Leah Ray.

She also encouraged designers to rethink ROI, not just as a return on investment but as a return on inclusion and influence. Designing with broader cultural competence, she argued, isn’t just ethical—it’s strategic. Inclusive design expands markets, builds trust, and often leads to unexpected breakthroughs.

Whether she was describing a playground built by a mother whose disabled daughter couldn’t access traditional equipment or her own experience trying to buy plantains online, Jean-Baptiste returned to one core idea: good design dignifies. Great design delights.

In a world facing increasing disconnection, her talk was a reminder that design is never neutral. It either excludes or embraces. And the future belongs to those willing to widen the lens.