Summary
This paper talks about the promise of empathy. They analyze the empathy activities aimed at minority people and how acts of empathy-building may further distance people with disabilities from the processes designers intend to draw them into.
Takeaway
For users with disabilities or minority groups, we should not try to mimic their behavior to generate empathy and thus trigger design decisions but should promote design ideas by communicating, coordinating, and learning to be affected and concerned about differences.
Real-World Example
As mentioned earlier, many HCI research groups invite only students and teachers on campus and explore interactions in a way that simulates disability. My friend conducted a project “exploring how VR room escapes games can work with the old and the young”. In fact, all the participants in the experiment were students. The researchers were responsible for simulating the elderly, and they “assumed” the activities of the elderly (slow movement, slow speech, etc.) to “approximate” the conclusions of the study. I think this is quite inadequate.