includete

Includete is a fictional open-standard concept introduced to illustrate the idea of embedding inclusive content metadata into digital documents and interfaces. The imagined protocol aims to let authors annotate elements with inclusion indicators—such as language preferences, pronoun usage, accessibility notes, and cultural considerations—without changing the primary content, enabling adaptive rendering and personalized user experiences.

The name blends include and a suffix common in technical formats, suggesting a protocol or data schema. There is no official specification published by major standards bodies in reality.

Proposed in 2022 by a coalition of accessibility researchers and educators in this hypothetical scenario, includete appeared in early prototypes in 2023 and has since been used in a few pilot demonstrations and educational experiments. It remains far from widespread adoption.

Key features imagined for includete include: metadata blocks attached to content nodes; language, pronoun, and accessibility preference indicators; cultural or contextual notes; and a data model designed to be backward compatible with existing HTML and content-management systems through data attributes or separate metadata layers. The concept emphasizes portability and interoperability across platforms that support semantic metadata.

In discussions, supporters argue that includete could improve inclusive UX, reduce bias in automated rendering, and simplify localization. Critics warn of privacy concerns, potential misuse for profiling, fragmentation across competing schemas, and the risk of increasing authoring complexity.

See also: Inclusive design, accessibility metadata, semantic web, metadata standards.