This week myself and a couple of colleagues at Aiimi ran an Empathy Day at my workplace where we discussed the various forms of accessibility and inclusion needs that people may have and how we can design our products and services to better serve those needs.

After an introduction talk from our guest Chris Bush, we had a workshop where we discussed the challenges that various persona’s might face.

From the Desk of Ajay Karwal is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

We then invited attendees to try out one of our six empathy emulation stations where individuals were asked to perform a simple everyday task, like sending an email, but with one of their abilities taken away or reduced.

Instructions for two of the empathy emulation stations

Overall the event was very informative and got everyone in the company thinking about how we can design and develop to make our product as accessible as possible.

We have an Accessibility Champions group here at Aiimi where we’re constantly talking about how we can keep improving. The road is long and the task is challenging but by having these conversations and by hosting Empathy Day’s we’re heading in the right direction to make the experience better for all.

Until next time!

Ajay

Further reading

There’s a ton of great sources of information about accessibility and inclusion. Have a read of Inclusive Design Commnities by Sameera Kapila to get yourself started.

Maybe take a course in Web Accessibility if you’re building digital products.

Or maybe you just need to think about the language you’re using to train your A.I. tools.