NEW | Free 2025 Trends Webinar 🙌

2025-Webinar-Jan
21 January 2025

Trends x AI Ideation

Join us

Simple set of stickers by Microsoft makes devices more accessible

With keycap labels, bump labels and stick-on openers, Microsoft's new Surface Adaptive Kit lets any user make their laptop or tablet easier to use. Tactile keycap labels allow them to identify important keys by touch, while textured, matching cable wraps and port stickers help line up cables with the correct ports. Adhesive pull-tab openers, meanwhile, help users with limited dexterity open laptops.

A person with an upper limb disability using a pull-tab to open a laptop

These low-tech solutions to making sophisticated devices accessible were created by Microsoft's inclusive Tech Lab, which also developed the Xbox Adaptive Controller. The Surface Adaptive Kit will arrive in stores later this year.

Trend Bite

Like other examples of OMNIBILITY, Microsoft's Surface Adaptive Kit applies universal design principles that don't just make devices easier to use for people with permanent disabilities, but everyone else, too. Those working in low-light settings, everyone who has tried to force a Lightning plug into a USB-C port, older people suffering from arthritis — you get the picture. For more on OMNIBILITY and how your brand can turn barriers into innovations, check out our free trend briefing.

Spotted by: Liesbeth den Toom