Walk into an unfamiliar airport, hospital, school, or museum and consider how many decisions you are expected to make without thinking much about them or their design.

Where do you go? Which line do you join? Where will you sit? How loud will it be? How long will you wait? What happens next? If something changes, how will you know?

For many people, these are minor details. For someone who is neurodivergent, the accumulated cognitive and sensory demands can determine whether a space feels manageable at all.

That raises a larger issue about how public spaces are designed. For years, accessibility has understandably focused heavily on physical access. Yet emerging approaches to neuroinclusive design suggest that access also involves predictability, communication, sensory experience and the amount of mental effort required to figure out how a place works.

The PAS 6463 guidance from BSI addresses neurodiversity and the built environment, while the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities provides a broader framework for accessibility and participation.

Perhaps the next evolution is to stop asking people to adapt to spaces built around an imagined average user.

Neuroinclusive Accessibility Can Start Before Someone Arrives

Makini Bridgewater, CATP Founder & Multigenerational Travel Advisor at Travel with Makini , has spent years thinking about accessibility across schools, museums, libraries, hotels, restaurants, airports, cruise terminals and attractions.

"One lesson has stayed with me throughout both my education and travel careers: when someone struggles to use a space, we too often assume the person needs to adapt," she says. "Universal design asks a different question: How can the environment adapt instead?"

Sometimes that adaptation does not require construction.

Bridgewater points to visual schedules, maps with recognizable landmarks, step-by-step instructions with photos or icons, short videos and clear information about what visitors should expect before they arrive.

Travis Hollman, founder of MeSpace, sees similar value in providing information in advance. If a library tells visitors what the space sounds like and identifies its busiest hours, for example, families can decide when a visit might work best for them.

Occupational therapist Aubrey Schmalle, OTR/L, SIPT, agrees. Businesses can provide photos and information about accessibility features on their websites, allowing neurodivergent visitors to become familiar with the environment before entering.

That information can transform predictability into a form of accessibility.

The Neuroinclusive Cognitive Load Is Part Of The Environment

Sensory experience receives considerable attention in conversations about neuroinclusive design, and with good reason. Research examining visual sensory experiences among autistic adults has documented experiences involving light, color, and visual stimuli.

Kathyrn Ward points to bright or flashing lights, movement, patterns and visually cluttered environments as conditions that may contribute to distraction, fatigue, stress or sensory overload for some neurodivergent people.

Yet Hollman raises another barrier that can be less obvious: decision-making.

He describes disliking restaurants where customers are told to choose any table, or cafeterias where someone gets their food and then has to determine where to sit while standing in a crowded room holding a tray.

"That's not noise or lighting," Hollman says. "That's being asked to make an open-ended decision in public with people watching."

Similar demands appear everywhere. A vague sign. An unexplained procedure. A rapidly delivered set of verbal instructions. An unexpected schedule change.

Bridgewater describes accessibility as cumulative. A confusing airport announcement may be manageable. So might unclear museum signage or a rushed hotel check-in. When those moments repeat throughout a day, however, the cognitive load adds up.

"Good design won't eliminate every challenge," she says. "It simply removes the unnecessary ones."

Neuroinclusive Design Cannot Stop At The Quiet Room

The quiet room has become one of the more recognizable features associated with sensory accessibility. Experts caution that its presence alone does not necessarily make a building neuroinclusive.

Michelle Retsky M.S. CCC-SLP, Founder & Clinical Director at Words in Motion Therapy, favors what she describes as micro-spatial zoning, creating transitions from higher-stimulation areas into lower-stimulation regulation spaces integrated throughout a layout.

A sensory room hidden in a noisy basement or requiring staff access may technically exist, yet remain difficult to use.

Ward raises a similar concern. Quiet and de-escalation spaces should be easy to locate, she says, particularly because someone experiencing sensory overload may already be struggling to process information. Thoughtful transitions can also help people move gradually from stimulating environments into calmer ones.

Siobhan Casey, Principal Greenwich Campus at Crimson Global Academy, argues for flexible options throughout a space rather than segregating neurodivergent users into a designated room. Jane Eagle, Inclusion Manager and Special Educational Needs Coordinator at Crimson Global Academy, similarly stresses the importance of predictable layouts, clear wayfinding, lighting, acoustics, and reduced visual clutter.

Roman Goldvarg, President of the Global Neurodiversity Association and Founder and CEO of TamiSpace, sums up effective neuroinclusive design through three ideas: choice, control and predictability.

A single sensory room cannot provide all three if reaching it is itself overwhelming.

Neuroinclusive Needs Can Be Surprisingly Ordinary

One reason designing for a mythical average user is limiting is that many accessibility changes can benefit people far beyond the group they were originally intended to serve.

Brandie D'Orazio, Co-Founder and Head of School at The Promise School, sees this in education. Adjusting lighting, allowing headphones, providing opportunities for movement, and incorporating visual and non-verbal cues can give students different ways to engage with their surroundings and learning.

Bridgewater sees the same principle in travel.

Wide bench seating at an airport gate might help an autistic traveler sit beside a trusted companion. It could also serve an older adult, a plus-size traveler or someone recovering from surgery who needs additional space.

That is one of the central ideas behind universal design. People arrive with different bodies, brains, communication styles, abilities and circumstances. Their needs may also change temporarily or permanently over a lifetime.

The "average" visitor starts looking increasingly fictional.

Neurodivergent People Need More Than A Seat At The Final Meeting

There is another problem with designing around assumptions: even well-meaning professionals cannot fully predict another person's experience.

Andrea Robertson, founder and CEO of Lexie's Voice Foundation and Lexie's Ranch, learned this firsthand with her non-speaking autistic daughter, Lexie.

"Having a voice does not always mean speaking," Robertson says.

Lexie communicates through her device, facial expressions, movements, clapping and smiles. Those responses can indicate when she is engaged and comfortable and when an environment is not working for her.

"If we really want spaces to work for people with different needs, we need to involve them from the beginning and pay attention to what they are telling us, however they communicate," Robertson says.

That principle becomes especially important because traditional consultation methods can exclude the very people whose experiences designers need to hear.

Ward recommends visual aids, physical objects and mock-ups, as well as support from trusted communication partners where appropriate. Goldvarg points to AAC, visual tools, asynchronous written participation, and adequate processing time.

Hollman adds another requirement: timing.

"Bring people in while the budget and the layout can still move, and pay them for their time," he says.

Waiting until drawings are approved leaves little opportunity for lived experience to affect the result materially.

Neurodivergent Design Requires Watching What People Actually Do

There may also be limits to what a survey can tell designers.

Hollman recalls visiting SMU when he noticed someone using one of his company's units in a nearly empty building. An hour later, the person was still there. When Hollman asked why, the man told him it was the only place where he could get anything done. Upstairs, another unit was occupied while someone waited outside for a turn.

"Nobody surveyed those people," Hollman says. "You just watch, and the building tells you."

Schmalle makes a related point about behaviors that traditional accessibility assessments may miss. Some neurodivergent people choose to grocery shop first thing in the morning, when stores are quieter, or deliberately select smaller stores. Those decisions reveal something about accessibility even if the person never formally reports a problem.

Emerging research on neurodivergence and experiences of the built environment adds to a broader discussion about how spaces can support or hinder participation.

Listening, then, can include more than asking questions. It can mean noticing where people linger, what they avoid, how they prepare, and what choices allow them to participate.

Neuroinclusive Design May Be Better Design For Everyone

There will never be a building that perfectly anticipates every sensory, cognitive, physical, and communication need. Nor should neuroinclusive design depend on finding a single formula for what neurodivergent people prefer.

People differ too much for that. As Bridgewater puts it, there is no average visitor. Parents with strollers, older adults, wheelchair users, first-time visitors, people recovering from injuries, people who do not speak the local language, and people with autism, ADHD, anxiety, or other disabilities can all experience the same building differently.

The more useful goal may be to create environments that ask less of the people using them. Clearer information. More predictable experiences. Better wayfinding. Choices about where to sit or regulate. Multiple ways to communicate. Advance information that allows someone to prepare.

And crucially, neurodivergent people should be involved while those decisions can still be changed. Designing for human variation may ultimately be more practical than continuing to design for an imaginary norm. Because the best public space may not be one that tells people how successfully they can adapt to it. It may give more people fewer reasons to have to.