The Promise of Empathy: Design, Disability, and Knowing the "Other"
Abstract
This paper examines the promise of empathy, the name commonly given to the initial phase of the human-centered design process in which designers seek to understand their intended users in order to inform technology development. By analyzing popular empathy activities aimed at understanding people with disabilities, we examine the ways empathy works to both powerfully and problematically align designers with the values of people who may use their products. Drawing on disability studies and feminist theorizing, we describe how acts of empathy building may further distance people with disabilities from the processes designers intend to draw them into. We end by reimagining empathy as guided by the lived experiences of people with disabilities who are traditionally positioned as those to be empathized.
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Disability simulation removes disabled people's lived experience from design, through superficial 'try on' experiences incomparable to living with disability.
“it removes disabled people's lived experience from design, through superficial 'try on' experiences incomparable to living with disability [8, 49].”
From Where are the Disabled Students?: A Literature Review of Disability Inclusion in Computing Education Research (2026) · cites this paper as [8]
True participatory co-creation is still rarely realized in practice; many institutional initiatives remain reactive or evaluative rather than proactively co-creative.
“However, as Baillargeon et al. [1] and Borsotti et al. [4] note, true participatory co-creation—consistent with the disability-rights principle 'Nothing about us without us' [5], is still rarely realized in practice; many institutional initiatives remain reactive or evaluative rather than proactively co-creative [3, 27, 40].”
From Teaching Participatory Inclusive IT Design with a Neurodiversity Lens in Computing Education (2025) · cites this paper as [3]
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“Decades of scholarship in rehabilitation and social psychology [[33], [49], [67], [83], [84]], education [[18]], disability studies [[48], [51]], and popular design blogs [[1], [86]] caution certain types of empathy-building around disability.”
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Experiencing ownership over a dark-skinned body reduces implicit racial bias
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"I am just terrified of my future" Epistemic Violence in Disability Related Technology Research
Ymous, A., Spiel, K., Keyes, O., Williams, R. M., Good, J., Hornecker, E., & Bennett, C. L. (2020) · Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3334480.3381828 · Cited by 160 · see citing works
Self-citationADHD and Technology Research – Investigated by Neurodivergent Readers
Spiel, K., Hornecker, E., Williams, R. M., & Good, J. (2022) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3491102.3517592 · Cited by 150 · see citing works
Assessing the Fairness of AI Systems: AI Practitioners' Processes, Challenges, and Needs for Support
Madaio, M., Egede, L., Subramonyam, H., Wortman Vaughan, J., & Wallach, H. (2022) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3512899 · Cited by 156 · see citing works
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To Live in Their Utopia: Why Algorithmic Systems Create Absurd Outcomes
Alkhatib, A. (2021) · Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3411764.3445740 · Cited by 81 · see citing works
Review of Quantitative Empirical Evaluations of Technology for People with Visual Impairments
Brulé, E., Tomlinson, B. J., Metatla, O., Jouffrais, C., & Serrano, M. (2020) · Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3313831.3376749 · Cited by 76 · see citing works
The Illusion of Empathy? Notes on Displays of Emotion in Human-Computer Interaction
Cuadra, A., Wang, M., Stein, L. A., Jung, M. F., Dell, N., Estrin, D., & Landay, J. A. (2024) · Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3613904.3642336 · Cited by 80 · see citing works
Co-design with older adults: examining and reflecting on collaboration with aging communities
Sakaguchi-Tang, D. K., Cunningham, J. L., Roldan, W., Yip, J., & Kientz, J. A. (2021) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3479506 · Cited by 74 · see citing works
Understanding Accessibility and Collaboration in Programming for People with Visual Impairments
Pandey, M., Kameswaran, V., Rao, H. V., O'Modhrain, S., & Oney, S. (2021) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3449203 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
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Eagle, T., Baltaxe-Admony, L. B., & Ringland, K. E. (2024) · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3689648 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
“Among other harms, research in this space has historically included many interventionist approaches, excluded communities of interest from work, and fails to promote autonomy [7, 88, 89, 109].”
Interdependent Variables: Remotely Designing Tactile Graphics for an Accessible Workflow
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Building “Design Empathy” for People with Disabilities: an Unsolved Challenge in HCI Education
Motahar, T., Brown, N., Wiese, E. S., & Wiese, J. (2023) · Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on HCI Education · doi:10.1145/3587399.3587409 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Tang, X., & Zhang, W. (2026) · Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3772318.3790464 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“In accessible computing, autoethnographic studies have provided valuable insights into broader contexts shaping accessibility and informed the design of assistive technologies [2, 12, 37, 41, 50, 98, 99].”
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Teaching Participatory Inclusive IT Design with a Neurodiversity Lens in Computing Education
Hermann, J., Jansen, N., Richter, U., Fleer, A., & Doganün, A. (2025) · Proceedings of the 25th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research · doi:10.1145/3769994.3770007 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“…al. [1] and Borsotti et al. [4] note, true participatory co-creation—consistent with the disability-rights principle “Nothing about us without us” [5], is still rarely realized in practice; many institutional initiatives remain reactive or evaluative rather than proactively co-creative [3, 27, 40].”
InfluentialExperiences and Perceptions of Blind and Low-Vision (BLV) People with Retail Self-Checkout Systems
Heisey, A., Shinohara, K., & Tigwell, G. W. (2026) · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3816243
- Authors
- Bennett, C. L., & Rosner, D. K.
- Affiliations
- University of Washington (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2019-05-02
- Pages
- 1-13
- OpenAlex
- W2942169651
- Cited by
- 413
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 70 · 2025: 64 · 2024: 76 · 2023: 67 · 2022: 45 · 2021: 47 · 2020: 38 · 2019: 6
- FWCI
- 35.54
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (DGE-1256082)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Disability Rights and Representation
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanical Engineering › Design Education and Practice
- Keywords
- empathy, human-centered design, people with disabilities, disability studies, feminist theory, user-centered design, technological progress, lived experience, power relations
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