InclusiveMag Process

• InclusiveMag Process is a meta-method for engineering inclusivity in software by systematically identifying diversity facets and transforming them into actionable personas.
• It employs a structured three-stage approach—Scope to define, Derive to synthesize, and Apply to evaluate—to integrate evidence-based criteria into inclusive design practices.
• Its practical applications have demonstrated quantifiable improvements in detecting inclusivity barriers across domains such as mHealth and socioeconomic systems.

InclusiveMag Process

InclusiveMag is a meta-method for engineering inclusivity into software systems through a systematic three-stage process comprised of (1) identification (“Scope”), (2) synthesis (“Derive”), and (3) practitioner application (“Apply”). It generalizes the inspection-driven approach introduced in GenderMag to support methodological development for any dimension of diversity, including cognitive, socioeconomic, sensory, and health-related domains. The process facilitates the construction of evidence-based evaluation procedures, underpinned by well-defined “facets” and archetypal personas, allowing software engineers and researchers to systematically surface inclusivity barriers and guide targeted remediation in real-world systems (Mendez et al., 2019).

1. Foundational Principles and Origins

InclusiveMag emerged to address the absence of reproducible inspection frameworks for systematic inclusiveness analysis beyond gender differences. Its core objective is to generate dimension-specific evaluation methods grounded in domain research and empirical findings, operable for underserved populations and mainstream counterparts. The three-stage model is:

1. Scope: Define the target diversity dimension and context; identify individual-difference facets affecting interaction.
2. Derive: Operationalize facets into structured personas and analytic artifacts; flatten facets into actionable ranges and embed them in scenario-driven walkthroughs.
3. Apply: Deploy the tailored method in practical settings for issue identification, tagging, and resolution.

This abstraction has enabled extensibility to domains including mHealth for chronic disease (ChroniUXMag), socio-economic inclusivity (SESMag), cognitive impairment, sensory disabilities, and age-related concerns (Wang et al., 23 Nov 2025, Agarwal et al., 2023, Mendez et al., 2019).

2. Facet Identification and Scoping Techniques

Stage 1—Scope—targets comprehensive facet elicitation. Researchers define both the diversity dimension and the software type, then employ mixed-methods inquiry:

• Systematic Literature Review (SLR): Synthesize foundational studies to establish a preliminary facet set.
• Qualitative Studies: Conduct focus groups and interviews to triangulate real-world concerns, using theoretical sampling for population variation.
• Quantitative Surveys: Refine and verify facet prevalence, associations, and demographic distributions through instrumented online surveys.

For mHealth requirements engineering, ChroniUXMag operationalizes this stage for chronic-disease populations, yielding thirteen inclusivity facets through an SLR, 22 qualitative participants, and 90 surveyed users. Sample facets include health situation, attitude, cultural context, dependency, trust, digital literacy, cognitive load, accessibility, engagement, privacy, caregiver role, and multimorbidity (Wang et al., 23 Nov 2025).

Facet	Definition	Example
Health Situation	Stage and severity of illness	Minimally changed UI for renal complications
Health Attitude	Self-management awareness/motivation	Goal-setting engagement for motivated users
Cultural Differences	Values (individualism/collectivism, etc.)	Shared caregiver features favored by collectivist users
Level of Dependency	Reliance on caregivers/clinicians	Caregiver-configured interface for the fully dependent
Trust in Apps	App reliability/data-handling confidence	Resistance to adaptations lacking transparency
Digital Literacy	Technology comfort and skills	Simplified UI for low-literacy users
...	...	...

A plausible implication is that there is a critical need for domain triangulation to ensure facet validity and coverage (Wang et al., 23 Nov 2025).

3. Persona Synthesis and Analytic Artifact Derivation

Stage 2—Derive—moves from raw facets to structured analytic procedures. The process includes:

• Facet-to-Persona Mapping: Flatten facets into linear scales (e.g., low-to-high dependency) and assign values for underserved, mainstream, and optional midpoint archetypes.
• Persona Construction: Fix cognitive/attitudinal facet values; demographic and background knobs are customizable for scenario specificity.
• Taxonomic Abstraction: Consolidate overlapping or granular facets into higher-level attributes to facilitate parsimony and reduce analytic overhead.
• Artifact Embedding: Instantiate personas into adapted Cognitive Walkthrough forms or alternative analytic processes (e.g., Studio critique, Heuristic Evaluation). Questions are persona- and facet-centered, demanding explicit reasoning and facet attribution at each step.

ChroniUXMag’s workflow exemplifies this with a reproducible persona template, conceptual placement of facets, and a three-column Cognitive Walkthrough form tracking Persona Info, Goal Decomposition, and Facet Checkboxes (Wang et al., 23 Nov 2025).

Persona Step	Associated Facets	Analytic Action
Elderly multimorbid user	Health Situation, Trust	CW: Decompose goal; evaluate recognition & reasoning

Validation by parsimony is used to ensure each facet is both non-redundant and essential for observed inclusivity barriers.

4. Application in Practice: Use Cases and Evaluation

Stage 3—Apply—operationalizes the method with practitioners. Activities involve:

• Practitioner Integration: Use persona templates during requirements elicitation, run facet-driven Cognitive Walkthroughs for all user stories/screens, and log inclusivity issues by facet.
• Workshops and Reviews: UX designers, clinicians, and software engineers participate in guided walkthroughs using these artifacts, enabling identification and prioritization of remediations that cover multiple facets.
• Documentation and Iteration: Maintain an audit trail of inclusivity decisions, allowing for longitudinal studies and iterative refinement of facets, personas, and analytic forms based on adoption feedback.

ChroniUXMag anticipates empirical evidence of reduced attrition and increased engagement for chronic disease management apps, as well as the emergence of a community of practice with shared templates and open-source tools (Wang et al., 23 Nov 2025).

In SESMag, a four-phase process (Evaluation, Validation, Improvement, User Study) is followed, where practitioners have eradicated 45–54% of SES-inclusivity bugs (facet-instance rates up to 96%), underscoring the operational efficacy of the process (Agarwal et al., 2023). InclusiveMag thus produces quantifiable, reproducible improvements in inclusivity outcomes.

5. Formal Structures and Methodological Abstraction

InclusiveMag is formalized as follows:

$$\begin{aligned} D &: \text{Diversity dimension (e.g., vision, literacy)} \ T &: \text{Software type under inspection} \ F &= \{\,f_1,\dots,f_n\}\quad \text{set of facets relevant to }(D,T)\ V^- &= \{\,v_i^- \mid i=1\dots n\},\quad V^+ = \{\,v_i^+ \mid i=1\dots n\} \ P^- &: \text{persona with facet values }(v_1^-,\dots,v_n^-)\ P^+ &: \text{persona with facet values }(v_1^+,\dots,v_n^+)\ A &: \text{analytic process (CW, HE, Studio Analysis)}\ M &= (F,\,V^-,\,V^+,\,\{P^-,P^+\},\,A) \quad\text{is the generated method}\ S &: \text{set of realistic usage scenarios for }T\ E &: M \times S \;\rightarrow\; \mathcal{I} \quad\text{evaluation function returning issues }I \end{aligned}$$

(Mendez et al., 2019)

Input-output structure by method stage:

Step	Inputs	Outputs
Scope	D, T, domain research	F, endpoint values, foundation document
Derive	F, endpoints, persona templates, A	Personas, customized M
Apply	M, persona backgrounds, scenario S, UI/prototype	Issue list, facet-attributed findings, proposed fixes

Pragmatically, the meta-method enables rapid construction and deployment of inclusivity inspections, adaptable to evolving domains and diversity dimensions via facet/analytic process specialization (Mendez et al., 2019).

6. Case Studies and Extensibility

The InclusiveMag process has been successfully applied across multiple populations and domains. The eight-team multi-case study demonstrates flexible mapping of diversity dimensions to specific software types and facet structures—ranging from cognitive (ADHD, autism) and sensory (vision) to socioeconomic (SES) and age-based concerns. Analytic processes included Studio critique, Cognitive Walkthrough, and Heuristic Evaluation; facets per method ranged from 3–5 (14 for complex cases) (Mendez et al., 2019).

For mHealth, ChroniUXMag applies the pattern with rigorous mixed-methods facet identification and practitioner-validated persona/cognitive-walkthrough templates, ensuring broad coverage of attributes relevant to chronic disease management (Wang et al., 23 Nov 2025).

In SESMag, low-SES personas drive Cognitive Walkthroughs that are empirically validated and improved across evaluation cycles, with detection rates and eradication rates formally computed (Agarwal et al., 2023).

Team	Dimension	Software Type	Sample Facets
ADHD	Cognitive	Finance app	Focus, Impulsivity, Memory
Autism	Cognitive	Math tutor	Comprehension, Concentration
SES	Socioeconomic	University portal	Home life, Psych. health
Older adults	Age	Email client	Tech comfort, Phys. difficulties

A plausible implication is that recurring patterns—in facet selection, persona construction, and analytic workflow—facilitate extensibility of InclusiveMag to new population-software pairings.

7. Limitations and Future Directions

Challenges identified include selecting facets with empirical relevance, maintaining facet parsimony to avoid analyst overload, and handling intersecting diversity dimensions. Environmental or physical facets may require external simulators; intersectionality remains an active area for refinement. There are open questions about method reusability across heterogeneous products, driven by the narrow software scope often required in pilot deployments (Mendez et al., 2019).

Future work, as outlined for ChroniUXMag, involves deploying the full Apply stage in real-world mHealth design settings, practitioner-led workshop evaluations, and iterative artifact refinement based on empirical uptake (Wang et al., 23 Nov 2025).

A plausible implication is that further empirical studies and community-driven template sharing will be important for maturing the InclusiveMag process and expanding its practical reach and impact.

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InclusiveMag stands as the meta-methodological backbone for inclusiveness evaluations in software engineering, facilitating domain-specific adaptation from health informatics (ChroniUXMag) to SES-diverse education platforms (SESMag), with proven reproducibility and empirical effectiveness across cognitive, sensory, and age dimensions. Its principled facet–persona–workflow schema provides granular, actionable insight into inclusion barriers, empowering software teams to systemically improve accessibility and engagement for underserved populations (Wang et al., 23 Nov 2025, Agarwal et al., 2023, Mendez et al., 2019).