Designing for the Digitally Excluded: Why low- and non-digital customers still matter today

During the last decade, digitalization has increasingly become embedded in our day to day lives. Today, almost any service can be accessed online. While this shift has brought many benefits, it has also widened the gap between those who can easily access and navigate online services and those who cannot, leaving many individuals digitally and socially excluded. Who are low and non-digital customers, why are they increasingly important, and how can Inclusive Design and AI help bridge the gap?

During a recent project, we were presented with a broad yet critical question: how could we help one of our clients to improve their services for non-digital and low-digital customers? Although we began by focusing on the elderly population, it soon became clear that age-related challenges were only one part of a much broader and complex picture. We realised any efforts need to go beyond accessibility and that meaningful change required a systemic lens.

A challenge that is here to stay

Over the past few years, providers of complex services such as finance, telecommunications and public services —have transformed at an unprecedented pace. What began as a survival response to the COVID-19 pandemic, has evolved into a full-scale reinvention of how organizations operate and engage with their customers. While this transformation has been driven by significant perceived benefits for both businesses and customers it has also introduced new barriers. The closure of physical branches along with the decline of in-person support mean many now rely heavily on family or personal connections for help in navigating digital services (1). Some of them may have limited digital skills in general, some may struggle with small text in mobile apps or reduced hand function due to age or other specific conditions. For some, the challenge is less about functional ability and more about low confidence and trust in digital interactions.
 

Figure 1. Low and Non-Digital customers basic facts
 

While the European Accessibility Act made it mandatory for all companies to comply with basic accessibility requirements, there is more to be done to make complex digital services truly usable for all. Today, low and non-digital customers still are, and will continue to be, a relevant segment for many different businesses for a combination of different persisting factors:

• The sustained gap between technology developments and age: the number of older people, and especially the 80+ group, is projected to increase substantially (4) and with this the need for a constant re-skilling and support to keep up with technological updates.
  
  
• Low literacy across different age groups contributing to the distrust and underutilisation of digital services (5). One recent trend is the decline of general literacy among youth in many European countries for the first time in history (6).
  
  
• Many essential services such as finance and healthcare can be experienced as extremely complex. (e.g. financial literacy scores overall low in EU citizens) (7).
   

Overall, it’s key to understand that these groups - many of which are overlapping - cannot be dismissed as a transitory phenomenon. On the contrary, in many areas of the world including North Europe the factors shaping them are evolving alongside technology.

What are companies already doing

Many companies have already started re-designing their services for Low and non-digital customers:  

• Adapting existing solutions. Making digital services more accessible and redesigning existing physical services.
  
  
• Providing support through learning: in-person support and classes, online video tutorials and training courses.
  
  
• Enabling external collaborations with other organizations to share facilities and infrastructure to guarantee a physical presence at reduced costs.
  
  
• Offering tailored digital solutions: launching facilitated mobile apps aimed specifically at low-digital customers and/or made for general use.
   

Some of these approaches have been quite successful in increasing the engagement among low and non-digital customers. However, this target audience is quite diverse and needs and preferences are not homogenous. Awareness of these efforts while providing the support needed at the right moment and time remains a major challenge.

Our approach: from Experience principles to inclusive AI design

Through our projects, we’ve identified three main approaches to start enabling better services for low and non-digital customers:

1.     Key Experience Principles for digital tools

These Experience Principles enhance modern digital tools for all users, but are especially crucial for the low‑ and non‑digital customers who are trying to navigate any digital service

• Build confidence in the tasks they want and can perform independently: adding positive feedback and confirmation during main interactions, giving customers a sense of having done things before; showing progress when performing a task.
  
  
• Enable trust.  Customers need to feel they are interacting with the right tool to perform the tasks they need to. Ways to do that include displaying transparency in how the tool works, its capabilities (and possible limitations); giving users a sense of control (e.g. go back / cancel/ undo operations); showing consistency, clarity and simplicity in the content tone and language used.
  
  
• Ensure safety. Adopt future-proof processes and protocols for robustness, adopting security cues and confirmations whenever an operation needs to be authorised, or a decision made by customers. Make sure to educate the audience and their helpers in latest safety measures (e.g. fraud, scams)
   

Figure 2 Experience principles for Low and Non Digital customers.
 

2.     Support the supporters

 The help provided by family members or other personal connections to low and non-digital is often disregarded but an essential part of the challenge to solve. Despite their fundamental role, these ‘supporters’ are usually not recognised by the service providers, nor facilitated in their function. Many organisations are (rightly) concerned about the risks around potential misuse of support, (e.g. customers sharing their log-in credentials or loosing total control of their digital profiles). Enabling ways to allow support to happen in a safe way is critical step forward.

3.     Responsible AI as a digital enabler

Emerging technologies can help bridge the gap, but only when designed through Responsible human-‑centered approaches that protect agency, support human ways of learning, and remain transparent and ethical. For example, AI interactions can be built to detect or act on self-reported conditions, calibrate speed, adjust words, change language and complexity or become a step-by step tutor. This personalization can bring more accurate personalisation, lower barriers (e.g. language, speed, explainability) and enable the independence of many digitally excluded. However, Inclusive AI and design iterations needs to be deeply embedded in these developments.  

It’s important to note that given the systemic nature of this challenge, no single solution will act as a silver bullet. Effective progress requires collaboration across the entire ecosystem, along with an approach that combines both short and long-term strategies and interventions.

Key takeaways

1. The challenge of improving services for low and non-digital customers is a systemic one. A wide range of complex factors are involved — such as education, financial and digital literacy, and the availability of accessible and flexible services — and they all influence the adoption of digital solutions. This means that only a holistic approach, combining short- and long-term, local and systemic interventions, will lead to meaningful change.
   
   
2. There will always be a segment of customers requiring support in their digital interactions, due to the rapid pace of technological advancement, to an increasingly ageing population and to structural educational gaps in literacy and complex services skills. Efforts for this target audience need to be part of day-to-day design and strategic decisions and deserve iteration and focus.
   
   
3. Initiatives for this audience can benefit all customers. Interventions to support low and non-digital customers go beyond accessibility and can have a huge positive impact in the experience of digital customers. They simplify experiences and stress test them for unseen/unexpected situations.

Designing for low and non-digital customers is key to develop future and more resilient solutions that empower and deliver seamless experiences for all.

References

(1)   Accessible Banking Monitor (2025). Annual accessibility benchmarking report.
https://toegankelijkbankieren.nl/2025/05/13/tweede-monitor-toegankelijk-bankieren/

(2)   Eurostat (2025). Digital banking adoption statistics by age group. In: Digitalisation in Europe – 2025 edition.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/interactive-publications/digitalisation-2025

(3)   “New Economy Skills: Building AI, Data and Digital Capabilities for Growth”, World Economic Forum White Paper.
https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_New_Economy_Skills_2025.pdf

(4)   Central Bureau of Statistics, The Netherlands, Population Forecast: more elderly than young people. https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2025/51/population-forecast-more-elderly-than-young-people NL about percentage of 80+ increase in the next 10 years

(5)   OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2024 (Volume 2),
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2024/11/oecd-digital-economy-outlook-2024-volume-2_9b2801fc/full-report/skills-for-the-digital-age_da6162fb.html

(6)   OECD (2025). PISA financial literacy results [Assessment Report]
https://www.oecd.org/en/about/programmes/pisa.html

(7)   2023 Eurobarometer survey results: 
https://finance.ec.europa.eu/news/eurobarometer-survey-reveals-low-levels-financial-literacy-across-eu-2023-07-18_en