One of the big collective mindset shifts that persons with disabilities have pushed for over the decades is a shift from sympathy (or pity, or awe at overcoming obstacles), toward empathy.   Actioning empathy, in turn, is more likely to lead to universal inclusion.  But how might empathy be actioned in a constructive way?   As Microsoft’s Inclusive Design Toolkit notes, “empathy is an important part of many different forms of design, [but] when building empathy for exclusion and disability, it’s misleading to rely only on simulating different abilities through blindfolds and earplugs. Learning how people adapt to the world around them means spending time understanding their experience from their perspective.”^[1] Increasingly, folks are pushing back against empathy games or suits as the temporary nature of these tools does not reflect the reality of navigating their experience full time,^[2] and instead finding other ways to connect and increase awareness.

Many enterprises, which may also be owned, operated, and/or employing people with disabilities, focus on building awareness of, and empathy toward, the lived reality of those who may have physical or cognitive impairment.^[3]  Dark Table, a restaurant in Vancouver (also formerly in Calgary), provides an experience where customers dine in total darkness.  Among a growing number of restaurants around the world, including O.Noir in Toronto and Montreal, that offer “blind dining”, Dark Table’s proprietors note that “with an unemployment rate of 70%, those with vision loss face obvious challenges in a society that is preoccupied with visual communication, but in a dark dining environment, the tables are turned—the non-sighted servers guide the sighted.”^[4]

SPOTLIGHT: Persona Spectrum