Capability Sensitive Design

A design approach, proposed by Ilse Oosterlaken, that takes human diversity morally seriously and evaluates technologies by how they actually expand or constrain the real opportunities (capabilities) available to individual users. Capability Sensitive Design extends the Capability Approach (Sen, Nussbaum) into engineering and HCI by foregrounding conversion factors — the personal, social, and environmental conditions that determine whether a given technology translates into valued action for a given person. In accessibility practice, this reframes "good design" from meeting generic usability thresholds to asking whether the technology enables each specific user to do and be what they have reason to value.