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Cited by 10Digital Accessibility for DisabilitiesInnovative Human-Technology InteractionDesign Education and Practice

Building “Design Empathy” for People with Disabilities: an Unsolved Challenge in HCI Education

Open access
Motahar, Tamanna, Brown, Noelle, Wiese, Eliane Stampfer, Wiese, Jason·2023·Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on HCI Education
DOI 10.1145/3587399.3587409
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Abstract

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) education research strives to integrate inclusion and diversity in classroom teaching. We focus on a key demographic that has been historically underrepresented in design: people with multiple disabilities and/or severe motor disabilities. Since engaging directly with these populations is rarely feasible, we need other ways of teaching students how to consider the challenges, emotions, and lived experiences of these target users. While current approaches in HCI education do engage students in thinking about accessibility through curated disabled experiences (e.g., simulation or personas), these methods do not fully reflect the holistic experience of people with disabilities. We propose a new way of teaching design empathy: immersing students in the real-world experiences of people with disabilities through a curated set of their public social media posts.

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  • Accessibility is still underrepresented in many curricula, and even when it is addressed, it is rarely taught in an applied, example-based way.

    “Accessibility is still underrepresented in many curricula, and even when it is addressed, it is rarely taught in an applied, example-based way [17, 38, 40, 42, 48, 52, 56].”

    From Proceedings of the 37th Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (2025) · cites this paper as [38]

    Section 2 says existing accessibility lessons and interventions often fall short of building design empathy, supporting a concern about how accessibility is taught. It does not establish that accessibility is underrepresented across curricula or rarely taught through applied examples; the same section describes assignments and projects used to teach it. Page numbers were not available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.78)

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  • Accessibility is often underrepresented in design education.

    “Regarding students' prior knowledge, our findings support research showing that accessibility is often underrepresented in design education [17, 36, 38, 40, 42, 48, 52, 56].”

    From Proceedings of the 37th Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (2025) · cites this paper as [38]

    Section 2 (page unavailable) says accessibility teaching interventions have had limited effects on students’ knowledge and calls for more directed interventions in HCI courses. Section 4.1 (page unavailable) says common approaches give students a shallow understanding of disabled people’s experiences. This supports a gap in how accessibility is taught, but the paper does not establish that accessibility is often underrepresented across design education. (LLM, conf=0.78)

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Authors
Motahar, T., Brown, N., Wiese, E. S., & Wiese, J.
Affiliations
University of Utah (US)
ORCID
Venue
Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on HCI Education
Publisher
ACM
Published
2023-04-28
Pages
68-71
DOI
10.1145/3587399.3587409
OpenAlex
W4365506277
Cited by
10
References
24
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 1
FWCI
4.19
Type
conference paper
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.acm.org/publications/policies/copyright_policy#Background (vor)
Locations
Annual Symposium on HCI Education (EduCHI) (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Human Factors and Ergonomics › Digital Accessibility for Disabilities
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanical Engineering › Design Education and Practice
Keywords
people with disabilities, HCI education, multiple disabilities, severe motor impairment, accessibility, diversity and inclusion, social media posts, lived experience

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