Empathy Labs

We’ve found Empathy Labs to be a fantastic way to get employees interested in accessibility and understanding the basics.

What is Empathy Labs?

We simulate a range of disabilities and ask employees to complete simple tasks while temporarily disabled. These activities create genuine “ah ha!” moments when they start to realise how difficult things can be for some people.

Please note – Empathy Labs are great for raising awareness of accessibility needs, but they don’t take into account the range of experiences between different individuals, or a person’s day-to-day experience of living with a disability. They also shouldn’t replace speaking to disabled people about their lived experiences.

In person labs

Empathy Labs are a super helpful way of bringing to life the challenges some people may face using your products. Finding simple tasks very complicated is a frustrating experience, as participants quickly realise. Some people may also face complete blockers, and be unable to complete a task. By understanding a little about how it can feel for some users with disabilities, you can further build empathy across your business or with the group you’re talking to.

Outcomes may include:

  1. Designers starting to think more carefully about the colour choices they make

  2. Writers considering the language they use from different perspectives

  3. Engineers making different decisions while coding to make what they're building more accessible to everyone

  4. Stakeholders and Project Managers allowing a little more time to make sure what you do is accessible

  5. And often a few bugs are found too!

Sound good?

Empathy Lab set up

Different companies run Empathy Labs in different ways. This video shows how we do it, at a recent lab held in our Edinburgh office:

2 minute video showing an Empathy Lab in Skyscanner’s Edinburgh office, with Skyscanner employees explaining what they are and why they are so effective.

Our event was run as a “drop-in” session, so Skyscanner employees could pop in any time during the day that suited them. The busiest time was when we announced the pizza had arrived (you gotta do what you gotta do…).

We set the room up the day before, and ordered all the kit way before that. We had nine different “stations” – each station simulating a different disability, and asking the participant to complete a different task.

Our kit list

1 x set of vision impairment simulation glasses (including magnifying glass)

2 x pairs of arthritis simulation gloves (large and small)

5 x laptops

2 x iOS phones

2 x Android phones

2 x whiteboards (one for dartboard, one for feedback)

1 x magnetic dart board

1 x Connect 4 board game

1 x arm sling

3 x jars (different types) + sweets

9 x perspex A4 holders (with contents)

9 x "How to" A4 laminated sheets

Standing promotional banners

Home office posters for the walls

1 x licence for Funkify (a digital disability simulator)

Room layout

Every time we host an Empathy Lab, the layout of room is different. We find it useful to group impairments together in terms of visual, physical, cognitive and hearing.

Shown below is an example of how our internal Empathy Labs are often laid out within a room.

Our stations

We update the tasks in our Empathy Lab regularly – here’s an example set. We ask people to put on disability simulation glasses or gloves before starting most tasks.

  1. Cataracts – Book a flight using the Skyscanner app

  2. Blindness – Watch a video of a blind person using a screen reader, and try it out for yourself

  3. Macular Degeneration – Book a flight on 3 different websites, while zoomed in to 400%

  4. Tunnel vision – Play a game of Connect 4

  5. Loss of visual field – Play a game of (magnetic) darts

  6. ADHD – Using the “Hyperactive Henny” persona in Funkify, find the answer to a question in our Privacy Policy

  7. Autism – Complete the form on userinyerface.com

  8. Loss of limb – Compare navigating through a favourite website using only the keyboard, then compare it to gov.uk

  9. Arthritis – Open different jars, tie shoelaces and draw on an iPad

Personas

For each station, we’ve developed a persona with a different disability. We print all the information out so participants can read about the disability, understand the task they need to complete, and learn about what they can do in their roles to help make things more accessible for that particular disability. 

Here’s an example:

Virtual labs

We’ve run our Empathy Labs in person to date, as we feel it’s the best way to engage people. But we do recognise that’s not always possible, and running a virtual version of an Empathy Lab would also be worthwhile.

The Funkify online disability simulator for the web has loads of other digital personas that provide useful insight into the challenges some disabled people face. There are also other examples of virtual labs documented out there, like the UK Government’s virtual Empathy Lab.

Or create your own!