The Case Against Empathy in Accessibility

Empathy is often touted as the foundation of inclusion, but what if it’s part of the problem? In accessibility, empathy-driven design can lead to solutions that are patronizing, ineffective, and ultimately fail to create true systemic change. Instead of relying on emotional responses, accessibility must be approached through systems thinking—ensuring that inclusion is not dependent on individual goodwill but is embedded into the very fabric of design, policy, and infrastructure.

The Problem with Empathy-Driven Design

Empathy, in its most basic form, is the ability to understand and share another person's feelings. While this seems like a noble starting point for accessibility, it has several critical flaws, especially when it comes to understanding the stages people go through when coping with disabilities, particularly those who recently acquired a disability (rather than congenital disabilities, which are present from birth).

1. Empathy is Subjective and Inconsistent Different people experience disabilities in different ways, and the stage of coping they’re in dramatically affects how they experience the world. A designer attempting to 'feel' what it’s like to have a disability can only simulate a fraction of the reality, leading to biased and incomplete solutions. Designers and engineers who rely on empathy are essentially tourists—experiencing only snapshots of the disability experience without understanding the depth of each stage, particularly in the context of someone who has recently acquired a disability.
2. Empathy Often Leads to Pity, Not Progress The first stage of coping with a disability is shock or denial. During this phase, individuals may feel overwhelmed, trying to come to terms with the sudden changes in their lives. If a designer empathizes with someone at this stage, they may react with pity rather than action. The designer feels the discomfort of the situation, but this doesn’t lead to any sustainable solutions. It’s similar to being a tourist visiting a country in crisis, briefly experiencing discomfort but never truly grasping the depth of the pain because they can always leave when they wish. Designers who empathize with this stage may mistakenly believe that they fully understand the experience when, in reality, they are simply responding to an initial emotional reaction, missing the complexity that unfolds over time.
3. Empathy Doesn’t Account for the Stages of Coping After the shock, many individuals move into a phase of grief and loss, where they mourn the life they once had. Designers who empathize with this stage might feel sadness or frustration, but they are still on the outside, unable to experience the ongoing adjustments that people with disabilities must make. This phase isn’t temporary—it’s part of a long learning process to live with a new reality. Designers and engineers often move on to the next "fix" or "solution," thinking they’ve understood the problem. Still, they miss the point that true coping involves time and the development of new strategies for living. Again, this is where empathy as a tool misses the mark, as it fails to understand the long-term commitment required to make adjustments truly.
4. Empathy Can Lead to Biased Judgments As individuals begin to adapt and adjust, they enter a stage of processing and acclimatization. This is where strategies for coping start to form as people learn how to navigate their world differently. However, a designer relying on empathy may still be in the earlier stages, failing to recognize that the individual’s needs have evolved. Designers are still "tourists" with no fundamental understanding of the daily, ongoing effort required to integrate a disability into life. Their solutions may be disconnected from reality, providing token fixes that do little to address people's deep and complex needs at this stage. Designers can become biased in favor of solutions that seem "easy" or "obvious" to them but overlook the more profound, nuanced needs of those adapting to the disability.
5. Excessive Empathy Can Lead to Negative Psychological Consequences Excessive empathy can hinder progress. Over-identifying with someone else’s pain can lead to feelings of helplessness and apathy, overwhelming emotions that may result in social withdrawal and isolation. People may retreat instead of acting to create change, thinking the problem is too big to solve. In extreme cases, this can lead to biased judgment, favoring those we empathize with over others, which can skew decision-making and hinder fair, inclusive processes. Furthermore, empathy can fuel polarization—empathizing with one group to the exclusion of others, demonizing those who are not the focus of our emotional attention. It can lead to exhaustion, or worse, aggression and cruelty when we feel that our emotional resources have been drained without tangible progress.
6. Empathy Fails to Reach the Stage of Acceptance, and Empowerment Acceptance is when individuals with disabilities start finding peace with their situation and living fully within their new context. It’s a stage where innovation and empowerment come into play as people with disabilities create new strategies for living in a world not designed for them. Designers still in the earlier stages of empathy can never reach this level—their transient experience limits them. They can’t truly understand what it means to adapt and innovate in a world where systems were never designed with accessibility in mind. For those in the acceptance stage, these designers are still tourists, never experiencing the resilience and creativity that come with living every day with a disability.

Compassion and Activism: The Path Forward

Instead of relying on empathy, accessibility must be embedded into systems, ensuring that inclusion happens naturally rather than being a response to individual acts of goodwill. This approach involves:

1. Codifying Accessibility into Standards and Regulations Instead of hoping designers and engineers 'get it,' accessibility should be a required part of every design review, coded into standards, and legally enforced.
2. Integrating Lived Experience, Not Simulated Understanding Rather than relying on empathy, organizations should actively involve people with disabilities in the design and feedback process to create solutions that work in the real world.
3. Embedding Accessibility into the Product Development Lifecycle Accessibility should not be an afterthought or a reactive response but an integral part of research, development, testing, and implementation.
4. Leveraging Data and Analytics Objective data about usability, accessibility failures, and user feedback should drive design decisions, ensuring evidence-based solutions rather than emotionally driven assumptions.

While empathy may spark initial awareness, compassion drives us to act on those feelings, taking steps to create positive change for others. Compassion motivates us to make fundamental, lasting differences, not just in how we feel but in how we behave. However, the path forward isn’t just about compassionate action but activism. True progress in accessibility requires us to become active agents of change, advocating for the systemic overhaul of policies, processes, and designs that perpetuate exclusion. It’s about pushing for a world where accessibility isn’t an exception or a luxury—it’s a built-in, foundational element of every system we create.

Moving Forward

Empathy has its place—it can spark awareness and ignite initial action. But true progress in accessibility requires more than just an emotional reaction; it demands a profound, systemic shift. We must move beyond the temporary discomfort of feeling someone else’s struggle and embrace a world where accessibility is not an afterthought but an integrated part of how we design and interact. Let’s re-frame the conversation—accessibility is not about making the world easier for some; it’s about reshaping the world to work for everyone. It’s time to stop waiting for empathy to guide us and start building a future where inclusion is simply the default, where systems and structures are designed to meet all needs from the outset. Only then will we create lasting, meaningful change.