A background of broken concrete stairs against a white wall, symbolizing design barriers.
July 7, 2025

Stop Simulating. Start Listening.

Why disability simulations fail, and what product designers can do instead

👁️ Disability simulations are everywhere in design workshops. But they’re teaching us the wrong lessons.

They’re meant to build empathy. But more often, they turn design into performance, where the designer is centred, and the user is treated as an obstacle.

And the research is clear: simulations tend to oversimplify, reinforce stereotypes, and distract from the real work of designing inclusive systems.

Let’s start with a scene you might recognize:

👓 The Workshop Starts with a Blindfold

You’re handed a cane. Told to cross the room. Told not to bump into anything. You do. People laugh nervously. You feel disoriented. Frustrated. Grateful it’s over.

The takeaway? “That must be so hard.”

But that’s not understanding. It’s theatre. And it teaches us the wrong things.

A stage with closed red curtains next to the quote: ‘That’s not empathy. That’s theatre.’ in white and purple text on a black background.

Simulations may feel dramatic—but they don’t build inclusive design.

🎭 The Problem with “Empathy Theatre”

Disability simulations aren’t designed to reflect real life. They’re designed to create discomfort.

Participants can opt out at any time. That temporary discomfort isn’t reality, it’s just fear.

Studies show simulations may trigger anxiety, shame, or embarrassment, emotions researchers consider counterproductive. Rather than promoting inclusion, they can reinforce pity or fear.

You walk away thinking:

  • “That was brutal.”
  • “I could never do that full-time.”
  • “I’ll never take scrolling for granted again.”

But pity doesn’t build accessible products. Respect does. Curiosity does.

I used to think wearing noise-cancelling headphones would help me design for neurodivergent users. All it taught me was how loud my office was, not how it feels to be misunderstood every day.

So what should we do instead?

📉 Simulations Focus on the Wrong Problem

They make the designer the protagonist. How you feel. What you can’t do.

But inclusive design doesn’t come from guessing what it’s like to be someone else. It comes from fixing the mismatch between people and their environments.

That’s the social model of disability in action:

Disability isn’t a personal deficit. It’s a design problem. And it’s ours to solve.

That’s not to say simulations are entirely useless. In rare cases (like accounting for temporary or situational impairments) they can help surface friction. But they’re not a substitute for lived experience. At best, they hint at issues. At worst, they reinforce the idea that disability is something to be feared or avoided.

If you use simulations, pair them with structured debriefs, ideally led by people with lived experience. Without that framing, they risk reinforcing harmful narratives.

✅ What the Best Teams Do Instead

The most inclusive teams aren’t simulating. They’re listening. Observing. Co-creating.

A screenshot of Slack with a highlighted message saying ‘Zoe Maxwell, 11:33AM, Works for me!’ and an arrow key symbol indicating how a screen reader announces the message.

Slack improved accessibility not by guessing, but by watching real screen reader users work.

🟢 Slack & Screen Readers

Early Slack builds confused screen reader users, new messages weren’t announced, and threads collapsed. So the team watched blind users work. The result? Smarter markup, clearer flows, and stronger product trust.

A top-down view of the Xbox Adaptive Controller, a white rectangular device with two large black buttons and multiple ports designed for customizable, accessible gaming.

Microsoft didn’t simulate disability. They co-created with disabled gamers, and changed the game.

🟢 Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller

Microsoft didn’t simulate motor impairments. They partnered with veterans and players with muscular dystrophy. Together, they built a modular controller that redefined what accessibility looks like in gaming.

Three OXO vegetable peelers with thick, comfortable handles, designed for users with limited grip strength or arthritis.

OXO didn’t simulate arthritis, they asked someone who lived with it. That’s how inclusive design begins.

🟢 OXO & Arthritis

The founder of OXO didn’t wear gloves to simulate arthritis. He just asked his wife, who had it. They tested together, and created the Good Grips line, now loved for its universal ease.

🟢 Liz Jackson & Disability Dongles

Liz coined the term “disability dongle” to describe flashy tech made about disabled people without involving them, like smart canes no one asked for.

Empathy without expertise is just guessing.

🧠 The Real Goal: Equity, Not Emotion

Empathy gets applause in a workshop. Equity gets your product into people’s hands.

Simulations may feel noble. But they often distract from the real work:

  • Researching real workflows
  • Involving real users
  • Embedding accessibility at the system level

Research consistently shows that direct interaction and co-design with disabled people—not simulations—are the most effective ways to improve attitudes and build inclusive products.

🧩 From Simulation to Inclusion

❌ Simulation Pitfalls

  • Oversimplifies lived experience
  • Reinforces stereotypes or pity
  • Frames disability as a “deficit”
  • Leads to performative allyship
  • Produces assistive “add-ons”

✅ Inclusive Practices

  • Co-design with disabled users
  • Prioritise lived expertise
  • Solve for systemic and environmental mismatch
  • Build long-term partnerships
  • Design for universal access from the start

🧠 Simulations may reveal friction, but only lived experience can show you how to fix it.

🛠️ What You Can Do Instead

💬 1. Co-design from the start: Involve disabled users during discovery, prototyping, and iteration, not just as testers. And pay them fairly.

🔍 2. Observe real assistive workflows: Don’t simulate a screen reader, watch someone use one. Ask questions. Learn from their expertise.

📦 3. Live the constraint, longer: Designing for one-handed use? Try living that way for a week. Let the friction inform your thinking.

📊 4. Treat accessibility as non-negotiable: Not a feature. Not an edge case. A baseline. Build budget, time, and scope around it.

🚀 What You Can Do Tomorrow

  • Use a screen reader on your product
  • Add alt text to your next design handoff
  • Run your UI through a contrast checker
  • Test with disabled users regularly
  • Advocate for access, even when it’s “not on the roadmap”

💡 If you run a simulation, follow it with:

  • Education on the social model of disability
  • Guided reflection on power and bias
  • Debriefing sessions with people who live it daily

Start small. Then scale. But start.

📝 Want the Toolkit?

Check out this free Notion doc:

🧰 Free Toolkit: Build Accessibility Into Your Process
Includes checklists, outreach templates, and testing strategies you can use today.
Open the Toolkit
Black background with white and purple text: ‘If your product shuts someone out, it doesn’t matter how beautiful it is. You didn’t design it—you just decorated a barrier.’

If your product shuts someone out, it doesn’t matter how beautiful it looks.

💬 Let’s Do Better Than Simulate

Simulations don’t make us better designers. Listening does. Observing does. Co-creating does.

If your product shuts someone out, it doesn’t matter how beautiful it is. You didn’t design it, you just decorated a barrier.

Let’s stop decorating barriers. Let’s remove them, together.