Empathy Activities

The simulation exercises outlined in these activities will allow you to experience how common digital tasks can become more difficult when sensory or physical barriers are introduced.

This is not intended to replicate disability or lived experience.

Instead, the goal is to help you notice friction, effort, uncertainty and emotional reactions, and translate these into better, inclusive design thinking.

Before You Begin

Please make sure you are seated comfortably and can safely adjust your device settings.

You may reverse any settings after the activity.

Step 1: Introduce a barrier

Please apply one the following changes:

👁️ Visual Barrier

Choose one or more:

• Increase screen zoom significantly (e.g. 150–200%)

• View in grayscale / reduce colour contrast

• If safe to do so, slightly blur your vision (e.g. remove glasses if safe, sit further away from screen)

🔊 Audio Barrier

• Lower your system volume

• Remove or use only one earbud / headphone

• If possible, introduce background noise

✋ Motor Barrier

• Use your non-dominant hand for typing, scrolling and clicking

• Only use the keyboard and not a mouse

• Slow down your interaction intentionally

Step 2: Complete a tasks

Choose a simple online task that you would normally complete without much thought.

For example, you could:

• write an email

• find out the latest sports results

• search for a train journey

• look up opening times or contact details

• find information on a public service website

• complete an online form

• add something to an online basket

• read a news article

• find and play a video

• make or change an appointment

Now try to complete the task while experiencing the barrier introduced in Step 1.

Pay attention to what becomes harder, slower, frustrating or impossible. Notice the small things too: finding buttons, reading instructions, understanding information, navigating between pages, remembering what you were doing or correcting mistakes.

You can add a short time limit if you want to introduce a little more pressure, but the aim is not to “win” the simulation. It is to notice how quickly an everyday task can become more difficult when the way you see, hear or interact with digital content changes.

⚠️ Please do not complete any purchases or submit personal or sensitive information.

Step 3: Reflect

While working, notice:

• Where did you slow down?

• Where did you feel unsure or frustrated?

• What required extra effort or concentration?

• What workarounds did you create?

• What emotional reactions did you experience?

• Did it have any impact on the time it took you to complete the task?

Step 4: Capture Your Insight

This is the stage where you take the reflections from the empathy tests and think about what they could mean over time.

Rather than moving straight into solutions, consider how these experiences may continue to affect users if nothing changes. It is an opportunity to identify longer-term patterns, barriers, and needs that may not have been obvious at first.

Also consider how these sensory or physical barriers may present themselves at the same time. For example, consider how some people may experience hearing and visual barriers at the same time. Or perhaps many people have various motor barriers with visual impairments.

Step 5: Activity to action

The empathy exercise should now be translated into specific actions that help the team move from observation to product and service improvements.

Identify Assumptions in your current product or service. Empathy exercises can often reveal that the current experience has been designed around assumptions rather than real user needs.

Surface existing assumptions by reviewing the current experience and explicitly list assumptions being made about users.

Typical assumptions include:

• Users know what to do without guidance

• Users understand internal terminology or jargon

• Users have strong literacy, digital skills, or confidence

• Users can access the product in a quiet, uninterrupted environment

• Users are using the latest device or browser

• Users have good internet access

• Users can see, hear, type, read, or remember information easily

• Users only speak one language

• Users have plenty of time and attention

Challenge Each Assumption, and for every assumption, ask:

• What evidence do we have that this is true?

• Who is excluded if this assumption is wrong?

• What alternative user situations should we design for?

⭐Validate assumptions with real users

If you are fortunate to have a user research team or access to researchers, you can take prioritised assumptions into future research sessions or usability testing.

Pay particular attention to:

• First-time users

• People with low confidence or digital literacy

• Users with accessibility needs

• Users under time pressure, stress, or cognitive overload

• People using different devices, internet speeds, languages, or environments

Even a short amount of testing can completely change how people think about accessibility and interface design.