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Overcoming the double empathy problem through co-design
The Empathy gap
There is an empathy gap created when autistic and neurotypical people fail to understand each other’s perspectives. Often, the assumption is that the problem is located in the autistic person because “they cannot empathise”. But, what if this is wrong? What if the failure to relate isn’t in the autistic person but in the relationship between autistic and allistic (non-autistic) person?
In his 2012 article, Damian Milton coined the phrase, “The Double Empathy Problem”. Milton, an autistic self-advocate, asked, what if there isn’t a single “empathy problem” but a double empathy problem? Milton argued that it was easier for autistic people to bridge the empathy gap between one another, the same being true for neurotypical people. Simply put, Autistic people tend to have trouble empathising with neurotypical people, and neurotypical people tend to have trouble empathising with autistic people.
How can knowing about the empathy gap make you a better designer?
If a user uses your product incorrectly, perhaps the fault is neither yours nor theirs, but a result of the gap between the two worlds. The person has failed to understand the intent behind the design of the product, and the designer has failed to understand your users. Therefore, the product was created according to a faulty understanding.
