One week of empathy training | Hacker News Reader

One week of empathy training

shkspr.mobi

242 pointsedent83 comments

An excellent blog post. I found the experience of being a wheelchair user a little amusing.

It is very unusual for companies or organisations to deny being accessible. In much of the world accessibility is a legal requirement, but it is very rare that it is precisely defined. So it is a very different matter whether that accessibility is adequate.

If the author had been in a chair, they would likely have found that the ramps up to the dais are far too steep, and require them to be manhandled up in full view of everyone. Some ramps may have been temporary and split, preventing powered chairs from using them. Or the ramp might have been ostensibly owned, but misplaced when it comes to be needed. They may well have discovered that the only accessible bathroom is in the bowels of the building, frequently used for convenience by nondisabled people, require a key from reception, is used as a store room, or is part of a regular bathroom behind an inaccessible automatic closing door. Were gradients in the outdoor landscape too difficult? Could all the doors be opened while having hands on both wheels to move the chair? Were refreshments accessible? Were tables the right shape to get a wheelchair under them? What about a powered chair?

I completely agree and sympathise that the range of disabilities is much broader than physical disability. But I think we should be careful of assuming even physical disability has been cracked. I think it is essential that more people have experience of navigating space in wheelchairs. In my experience it is much much more difficult than I would ever have assumed.

>In much of the world accessibility is a legal requirement

This is very true for the USA, but not so much elsewhere. It's common in Europe for buildings to have no wheelchair access at all.

Much of this is thanks to the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) which will celebrate it's 30th anniversary next year. I can remember how much people despised that the government was forcing another regulation on the poor businesses and how the world was going to come crashing down as a result. But here we are with at least a mediocre of accessibility and much of it can be traced back to the ADA.

> But here we are with at least a mediocre of accessibility and much of it can be traced back to the ADA.

While the accessibility may be mediocre, we do have a modicum of it.

It's a requirement for new buildings. It just happens that a lot of European buildings are very old and difficult to modify.

Going between Stockholm University and the Royal Institute of Technology the elevators were out for a few months straight.

Wheelchair users were suggested to go from nearby stations, which in the case of Stockholm Uni is 1.9 km with roller coaster like hills from the previous and even further with a wild downhill along the highway for the next one.

In Holland, it seems like a lot of effort is put into wheelchair access. At least for newer buildings (Post WW2) and public transportation. But I'm not physically disabled, so haven't actually experienced it fully.

I was surprised that in NYC not all stations and platform have wheelchair access.

That's something I've noticed living in a major Northern European Capital. As result, I don't interact with disabled people nearly as often as I used to in the USA.

Yeah. That's a fair point. I did spend some time in a chair when I was much younger - so I have a vague memory of some of those issues.

Perhaps I should do it in a cheap chair... Could be interesting - but might be a bit socially weird.

My criticism was not intended to be overly negative, by the way. Thank you so much for writing this.

>Were tables the right shape to get a wheelchair under them? What about a powered chair?

I was unaware this was a problem. Could you elaborate more on accessibility of tables? Are there specific features/markings/certifications I should look for to ensure accessibility?

I'm not aware of any markings or certifications. And ending the list that way, I wanted to suggest a whole hinterland of considerations, rather than elevate table choice particularly.

But with those caveats, there are three issues with tables I've faced as a wheelchair user. In order of being increasingly common:

1. Wheelchairs are wide. I can't get into tables with legs a small distance apart. And the table is useless if I am too far away from it or I am side on.

2. A powered wheelchair is particularly tall, so short tables cannot be accessed. There were some I couldn't access in a manual chair also, particularly those with lips around the top. Or bolts and hardware on the underside that are painful to whack knees into.

3. Tables with a single central base don't allow wheels to enter on the floor under the table.

My disabilities are acquired. So I largely ignored the issue when I was running my businesses. As such I don't know about formal best practices or certifications. Honestly my best advice would be to rent a wheelchair for an afternoon and try it.

What country?

For maximum accessibility, a powered desk that raises or lowers is ideal to account for more situations.

>frequently used for convenience by nondisabled people

How does their use interfere with the disabled person's use?

It interferes in multiple ways.

First, it's more spacious so people will almost always choose it before any of the non accessible stalls, and people will use it when they need to go number 2 because it's more comfortable. When I want to use the only accessible stall on my floor, at work, I need to either wait between 15 to 30 minutes for people to finish doing their business or come back later (later it'll still be taken by someone else, it's practically always taken.)

Second, because so many people use it, it ends up being much more degraded than non-accessible stalls. It's always dirty, and often plugged. The seat is broken and detached from the toilet itself (extremely important criterion for someone who can only sit and can't hover).

It's not isolated to my workplace either, it's so common that peeing is pretty much my main worry when going anywhere (aside from not being able to enter at all).

I'm reminded of the movie Hidden Figures every time I discuss this topic, it's set in the 60s and there's a scene where a black woman has to walk an outrageous distance to go pee because there's no colored bathrooms at her work. She starts crying after being scolded for disappearing so long multiple times a day, and after she explains the situation her white manager breaks down the "whites-only" sign on their work bathroom with a baseball bat in a climactic feel-good moment. Around 2014, 54 years later, all the handicapped stalls at my work were condemned because of the degradation. I had to roll 500 meters every time I wanted to pee for four months, nobody gave a shit. I've never had a nice manager with a baseball bat stand up for me in such a way, but I've met plenty of people throughout my life who're content to argue that "it's fair that disabled people should wait like everybody else if all the other stalls are taken because it's really not a big deal."

Also, some people who are wheelchair users, who require an accessible wheelchair stall, experience severe autonomic dysreflexia if they are unable to empty their bladder and/or bowels right away!

Trust me, it is just about the worst feeling in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_dysreflexia

There is nothing like the feeling of your head about to explode, plus the worst feeling of doom possible, plus your blood pressure surging, and seeing spots. Afterwards, even after you relieve yourself, you are completely washed out and feel terrible for the rest of the day. Like "I got run over by a truck terrible" (no exaggeration).

By the way, there are people who can walk who experience this too. So don't just assume that it is only wheelchair users who experience it.

Just know that restrooms/toilets/bathrooms, especially accessible stalls, need to be open to the public, not only for human dignity, but for the small subset of people who absolutely have to relieve themselves at any given moment. It is, no question, life threatening.

It is actually shocking that the general public does not realize this. The same goes with the fact that wheelchair and/or mobility device users definitely require disabled parking for safety reasons, as they can easily be in a driver's blind spot.

I've assumed the etiquette is to only use the accessible stall if no others are available.

You should not use it at all.

If the ratio of disabled facilities to able-bodied facilities is n:1, then your wait time for an able-bodied facility is 1/n, but the disabled person will have to wait for 1 unit of time.

Add to that that disabled people more often have medical needs around toileting (pain, urgency, uncontrollability, catheters or ostomies full or failing), and that extra wait can turn into somebody's nightmare day. For the sake of fractionally less wait for you.

It's the same reason why you should not use disabled parking spaces, even when no other convenient parking space is available.

Interesting. About half the toilets in my office are accessible, and the existing men:toilets ratio is about 150:1, so really it's 300:1. I should file an OSHA complaint.

(This isn't a sweatshop, either, the lowest paid among them make at least $45/hour).

If there are so many accessible bathrooms that there is no way a disabled person could possibly wait, the concern is moot. Of course. A super common situation /s

>A super common situation /s

I don't understand the "/s." The public restrooms I encounter have either one or two stalls, and one of them is always accessible. Accessible toilets are never less than 50% of all toilets in the building. Occasionally there might be one wheelchair user in the building.

> Accessible toilets are never less than 50% of all toilets in the building.

Of hundreds of buildings I've been to, I have never seen a single place where that is even close to being true. Including hospitals. Do you mean accessible? With double drop handles, Wide enough to put a wheelchair next to the seat? Accessible handbasins (low, easy to reach the taps)?

I find it very hard to believe that more than 50% are.

Nah, you can use it whenever, but don't take forever.

I'm glad that they claimed not to know sign language. There's a tendency among the healthy and able-bodied (myself included) to assume that if someone is deaf or has a disability which prevents them from speaking then they've likely had it from birth and will have developed means of communicating in other ways.

But there are a slew of accidents and later-onset diseases which could leave someone suddenly unable to speak and without the time to learn to compensate with something like sign language.

When a close relative was diagnosed with one of these diseases in Australia, their doctor gave them a website to use where they could type and somebody would play their part on a phonecall. Their staff would call the desired number and transcribe the person's response, reading out in turn any (typed) response from my relative.

I don't know who ran or funded the service (likely local, state or federal government, because Australia is pretty good like that), or what it was called, but I have a great deal of respect for the program.

That would most likely be the National Relay Service, which is run by the Federal Government: https://www.communications.gov.au/what-we-do/phone/services-...

The NRS runs a bunch of services, including 106, the emergency number for teletypewriters, which IIRC was one of the first emergency call services in the world designed specifically for the disabled.

This was definitely it, thanks.

I believe these have existed for years in the US too. I had a deaf friend in high school and she could call me using a service where they received typed messages from her. It was 20 years ago so I don't remember exactly how it worked on her end but I remember receiving those calls each time from a different voice.

Yes and there's also a similar service where a signing person can video chat to a sign language interpreter who voice calls the hearing person while signing in the video chat. Proficient signers are very high bandwidth.

I used to have regular calls with a sysadmin who connected to our service using a relay service. This was back in the early 90s before the internet was pervasive, so we replicated databases via modems, and that involved coordination with the various admins. The relay operators were always quite clear when they called, letting me know they were acting as a relay for the guy, and despite our fairly technical discussions, it worked. I won't claim it was the easiest communications I've ever had, but we kept our systems connected.

IP Replay. as dumb teenagers my friends and i abused this system for prank calls

Thanks, you answered the one question I had after reading this. I thought most people unable to speak would know sign language, but that's clearly false. I take pride in the fact that our office is really accessible. Once they shut down one of the elevator for "walking week", increasing the load on all the others. One of my co-workers in a wheelchair had to wait multiple elevators multiple times since they were so packed. So I cold mailed the head of services to get him access to the service elevator and they happily obliged.

I never understood why so many companies prefer to be contacted by phone. I don't have a speech disorder, but I just don't like using the phone. Shouldn't interactions by email or chat be more efficient for companies as well?

Broadly speaking, the easier it is for a customer to buy stuff, the harder it is to cancel them - gym memberships, internet etc.

This is why many online services don't send you an email when they charge you monthly (they hope you forget the subscription and this strategy works very well), you need to call them and wait for an hour to speak to an "executive" who is pushy and unhelpful etc.

There should be a law to force any subscription service to inform you every time they charge (a simple email). It would also be nice to have a "subscribe until" option. For example, if I am looking for a job and am confident that I'll find one in the next 3 months, I should be able to say "charge me $30 per month, for the next 3 months" ...

Or better, make banks allow you to cancel recurring payments for without a fee, and make non-payment the same as cancelling an account.

Europe is partially there; SEPA Debits can be blocked for free. The last part is missing, so you still have to cancel the account, but you can at any point deny them access to your bank account.

Generally this should only be used once you have notified the other party of the contract of the cancellation (preferably in a way that can be traced and proven, like signed receipt postal mail) and they then ignore your cancellation.

>This is why many online services don't send you an email when they charge you monthly (they hope you forget the subscription and this strategy works very well)

Reminds me of a scummy tactic by Spectrum - they never sent me a bill after the first month (or if they did they used the previous tenant's name), then charged me a late fee.

A typical pattern is to accept orders electronically but cancellations only by phone between 1:00 pm and 1:12 pm.

Or fax. “Send us the request on a floppy disk and we’ll respond with the cancellation instructions cassette you could listen to on your Sonny walkman”

AOL used to be masterful at this. It was almost impossible to cancel them. A lot of people cancelled their credit cards to get rid of them.

...with a hold time between 20 mins and 40 mins that must end within this time period.

Should be illegal.

It is illegal.

(If they don’t accept correspondence from any other media)

Companies in every state in the US have to have a USPS mailing address. It’s a simple matter of sending them a proof-of-delivery letter to their business address registered with their state’s company register to request an end to your business dealings with them.

If they ignore it or claim they didn’t receive it despite USPS attesting it was delivered, then they aren’t monitoring their physical mail address and presumably there’s state penalties for that.

Hmmm! Startup idea: a dotcom website that sends USPS mail to business you hate dealing with to succinctly request service termination and no further contact. Any takers?

Presumably the inevitable Aereo-esque lawsuits are what keep people away.

Even forcing that should be illegal.

I'm dealing with a company at the moment where the interaction tends to go like this:

1. They call my mobile number, but I am not available.

2. They email me to say that they can't get hold of me and ask me to phone them.

3. I contact their customer support on Twitter who tell me what the original message was.

Simply sending me the message by email in the first place would save some time. I'd also then have a log of any discussion, which I don't get on the telephone (but they record conversations).

People at this company may think that some potentially confidential information may arise in what they will (send to (or receive from) you. Many believe that the phone is better at preserving confidentiality.

Indeed. But, they still do this even after I have explicitly requested emails.

Telephone is voice which is better for salesmen to sell you stuff.

Employees who can answer a phone call are cheap and a dime a dozen. Employees who can type and appropriately communicate their intentions in written form, not so much.

Also, unless the phone calls are recorded by one party, telephone calls don't leave a paper trail for later accusations to be verified/denied, etc..

Usually because it provides an opportunity to upsell. Or to answer any questions in a synchronous fashion.

Great for sales and preventing abandonment - but not great for simple or routine transactions.

Yep, and many customers use a "cancel service" request as a pretext to get a discount or other benefit.

The call-center departments that handle cancellation requests aren't frequently named "Customer Retention" for nothing.

I've gotten discounts and free-bees from my NYTimes electronic subscription in this way.

Interactions by email or chat are less efficient for companies than the telephone. This is so, because for the vast, vast majority of people it is much easier to talk then to type. Specially when things get more complicated. With the phone you can also easier check, if the customer understands you. You can easily explain at the phone something that would need to type you out 250 words or more. With a chat you would not be able to do that. Also you would not be able to verify if the customer has even read the piece or just tuned out.

Speaking at the phone is faster than typing a chat comment. It is also more empathetic, the human touch makes people perceive the company as friendlier, closer to you and more empathetic.

Nothing says "friendly and empathetic" like talking to a robot to go through menu options, then being put on hold for 45 minutes listing to music being played through a tin can while waiting to be connected to some contracting call center.

Of course I know what you mean. Many very big corporations do it that way. But that is not how it should be done and as you point out that destroys the friendliness. A good customer service person at the phone will always be more friendlier and empathetic than one at the chat. It comes with the tools. This is so, because on the phone you can work with your voice.

I was disabled for two months following my ankle surgery. I had to be non-weight bearing and was not supposed to let my foot touch the ground. Each simple daily step was ten steps. To change pants, find some place to sit, use the knee scooter to go there, sit and then change pants. Scooting to this sitting spot, usually a couch in my bedroom takes some maneuvering the scooter from a closet. Couldn't take a shower standing, getting into a tub was a big process. Through all this, I gained an appreciation for the permanently disabled people. I haven't recovered completely, but when I am, I want to use that knee scooter at least once a month to count my blessings rather than fretting about trivial things.

Right there with you.

I have considered myself as reasonably aware for my whole life, probably because my mother was a physical therapist, but it wasn't until I spent some time being severely mobility-compromised that I really understood.

About 5 years ago, I had a bad cycling crash where I broke my hip. (Doing this at 44 takes some energy, apparently; they put me in a study because the number of healthy 44 year olds with broken hips who didn't get them courtesy of an auto accident or IED overseas is apparently small.)

I couldn't walk for 3 months, and was pretty compromised due to atrophy for another 2 or so after that. Mostly, I used a walker, but for a week on a cruise we'd booked, I used a wheelchair. Being in that position even for a short amount of time will really change your outlook.

I broke my ankle three years ago and your post reminded me of my post recovery state. Super sympathetic and appreciative of people who accommodated me when I was down.

Fast forward three years and I am getting super frustrated with people going up stairs slowly when getting off the subway. Thanks for the reminder!

This is coming from a disabled individual: I do not find the practice described in the post offensive, as a disabled person, but many people in the disability community actually do find it offensive. I am talking about "simulating" life with a disability, such as from a wheelchair, when you do not have a disability.

Many disability related publications may be viewed as "radical" by the able-bodied, but you should take it for what it is. Many of us have lost some basic human dignity and/or respect from others due to just being disabled, and this is how some of the "radical" aspects come about in writing. Anyways, here is a good article why these "disability simulations" are offensive to some: http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/focus/wrongmessage04.html

Instead, one should be contacting the diverse disability community (via social media, for example) and consulting directly with them, and actually doing what they ask for, for accommodations.

There are many leaders who would be more than happy to help. If you look for them, you will find them, especially via places like Twitter.

Also, making apps completely accessible for the blind, from the start, ends up making your app logistically better for everyone too.

The same goes for making buildings accessible for various disabilities (curb cuts benefit not only wheelchair users and the mobility impaired, but people with strollers too). Captions not only benefit the deaf. The same goes with making events accessible for people with autism, epilepsy, etc.

A lot of this stuff really does not cost more. You just have to consult and ask the disabled community, such as via Twitter. A lot of them would be more than happy to help you, pro-bono.

If you think that's bad, try turning off JS in your browser, or even using not-Chromefox for a week.

I use qutebrowser for what I consider an accessibility reason--not using a pointing device to prevent arm/shoulder pain. Keeping JS turned off improves performance on my older devices.

For example, Slack tells me that my version of QB using Chromium 65.x for WebKit base, is unuspported. Oh well, good riddance. But that keeps me from accessing information about the hacker space I don't go to anymore because I can't find out if someone is there to let me in.

This kind of arrogance about new device is widespread among hacker types who design and develop for Chrome latest on a top-spec machine and ignore everyone else.

See also: Age simulation suit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDUMIAfjBIc

I tried just using wheelchair paths in NYC for a few weeks. Aside from only a small percentage of stations having any accomodations at all, most of the time the elevator to the platform is on the other end of the station from the elevator to the street. (Boston has almost stations accessible, with some lines having elevators in every station.) The Access-A-Ride service requires waiting several hours at times (I never used it, just witnessed it with other people.) TL;DR: If you're handicapped in NYC, don't schedule more than one appointment per day, and forget about doing anything else that day.

I think the current title of this article is a bit “click-baity”. That being said, I really appreciate the content.

I worked on video game UI for several years and part of that job was interviewing users who had difficulty. We specifically interviewed users with disabilities because we believed that making our game better for that set of users made the game better for all users.

Even if you don’t want to go for a whole week pretending to have a disability their are simple things you can do to live the experience in a limited fashion like simulating color-blindness in software, using arthritis simulating gloves or even pulling your chair back and seeing if you can still read the text in your UI.

The title is literally how I felt.

I encourage you to run the experiment yourself, and blog about it. I'd be interested in your experiences and what blog title you'd choose.

Hmm, disabled users aside, this is park of a general dark pattern: no text-based contacts.

Aside from meaning you need to be available at whatever phone hours are, it mean you don't have a paper trail. I believe this is exactly why it is done. Legal permission is often needed to record a phone call; The support line may explicitly tell you the call is being recorded, there is no option to opt out (recorded, or no support), no option to obtain the recording (for our uses, not yours).

This one-sided paper trail is beneficial for such companies, it means they can outsource and not worried if customers are lid to, what can the customer prove? If it's a contact for a cancellation, they aren't even losing pissing off a customer, just an ex-customer.

Phone companies are especially fond of this, e.g. Virgin. I've yet to find a good contact for Vodaphone. Some will explicitly tell you that some <foo> function is "handled by the <foo> team", who are only contactable by phone (and are often subjected to commissioned sales).

In the UK, you don't need permission to record your personal phone calls. I do it all the time.

And, if you send a Subject Access Request under GDPR, the company will provide recordings.

"Switch on subtitles...Do they even have subtitles?"

To their credit, the BBC provides 100% subtitle coverage of all their TV channel content.

However, many video reports on the BBC News website are not subtitled - so still room for improvement.

I know some selfish people and live with one of them right now. I think no amount of talking and therapy will change these kinds of people. For some, it's inherited and ingrained in them. I live with a cousin who even at 5-6 years old was like that. We'd go to a store and do shopping and he would drop the bags and refuse to help us out and carry them. At 24 he's the same way lol. We'll cook and he will rarely help out but he'll be the first to eat. I think weed and hallucinogens can help people have more empathy. It makes them feel more connected to the world and everyone else.

> I think weed and hallucinogens can help people have more empathy.

Maaaybe.. in my experience, selfish people just tend to become annoying when they're high.

I really can't imagine ever thinking to myself, "You know what I really wanna do? Eat some shrooms around <person who is really selfish>."

Truly excellent post! I discovered just how inaccessible the NYC transit system is for folks using wheelchairs or other personal assists when I had surgery. It is appalling how many elevators are broken all the time, thus making fast transit nigh impossible. That experience made me much more aware of accessibility issues people face. More needs to be done.

This author apparently didn't even try to use the Text Relay Service which exists exactly for this purpose. Relay Services have been available for decades and are free with many Internet enabled options. Either this author doesn't know any persons with speech or hearing disabilities or did zero research into the topic.

That would not have helped in this case:

> Terence: I am perfectly capable of managing my affairs - and I don't want to give my password to someone else.

Except this happens all the time. It's the same details you'd provide to a CSR at a call center.

Coincidentally, started listening to this podcast episode on NPR Hidden Brain - The Empathy Gym [0].

Reading this blog post and listening to that podcast is making me think on how I can focus on building empathy in my children. I guess leading by example is the right way to go....

[0] - https://www.npr.org/2019/07/22/744195502/you-2-0-the-empathy...

URL[0] is wrong (but redirects correctly).

[0]literally - https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/07/i-feel-hopeless-rejected-an...

Weird! I thought I only pasted it once. Thanks for spotting.

Given that you can't speak and must use a phone, can't you use a text to speech (TTS) solution? There are whole Youtube videos with stupid old MS Sam, and they're passable, modern TTS sounds a lot better. I have never thought of that possibility for disability, and thank you for enlightening me.

"I've spent a week cosplaying as a disabled user. And I hate it"

While accurate I believe your comment trivializes the issue.

It is hard to empathise with many disabilities until you have "walked a mile in their shoes". You don't even notice the failure modes.

The idea that people should try, and the emergence of products like the arthritis simulating gloves, and good steps.

When the ADA passed there was (and of course remains) criticism that it only helps a disproportionally few people and if businesses didn't want their custom that was the business' problem. But we all take advantage of many ADA affordances either through transient disability (e.g. breaking a limb) or just life (carrying a large number of packages).

Please don't scorn the author. I personally would not have gone as far. And I learnt something by reading the article.

The parent comment quotes the first line of the article.

Indeed, and I said it is accurate, but while the introduction of the article is ironic: why would someone say something that shocking about their behavior? Read on and you'll see he felt it only scratched at the surface. And "I hate it"...we learn that "it" wasn't the experience itself, which was frustrating, but the vistas of difficulty for his fellow people it opened his eyes too.

While to pull only that line out comes off as mocking.

"I hate having this disability" is entirely different from "I hate how little other people care about my disability, even when they say they do". There was not one single word in the article to the effect of the former, it was entirely focused on the latter.

I really dislike this. It feels trivializing and insensitive, like being disabled is something you so for fun and that it's not a real thing.

Ah, yes, disability tourism.

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