In the fields of user experience and accessibility, everyone talks about the curb cut effect: Features that are added as accommodations for people with disabilities sometimes become widely useful and beloved. But not every accommodation becomes a "curb cut," and I've been thinking about other patterns that come up when accommodations intersect with wider society.

[... Summary from the end of the post]

First, there's a trio of scenarios in which an accommodation proves helpful to more people than it was originally intended for:

• The Curb Cut Effect: When something designed as an accommodation for a particular group becomes widely useful
• The Weighted Blanket Effect: When a curb cut effect also leads to innovation or broader availability, creating additional benefits to the original users
• The Orange-in-a-Box Effect: When a curb cut effect has potential externalities or societal costs in aggregate. It requires [...]

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