Building empathy - remotely

How to run a basic keyboard navigation empathy exercise on Teams or Zoom.

Arguably the most successful method I’ve found for both raising awareness of accessibility and building empathy with colleagues has been to help them experience the struggles others may face first hand.

Empathy Labs have been a hot topic within the digital accessibility community for a few years now (I don’t want to get drawn into the debate about their suitability, but I do believe they can add real value). However, remote working has introduced a challenge:

How do you get groups of colleagues together to experience the challenges of others when they’re not in the same room?

The logistical challenges of setting up accessibility personas for remote use is a hefty one. As an alternative, I’ve been working on an exercise designed specifically for remote working teams that focuses on the challenges faced by those who navigate exclusive with a keyboard.

“Summer Holiday”

The premise of this exercise is based on a task we all enjoy — booking a holiday!

Engagement is key with this so using a task that your participants will react positively to helps. If you’re asking people to do something dull, it’s much more likely that people will lose interest.

The participants are asked to book a holiday of their choice, using just their keyboard.

Positioning

It’s important that you position the importance of keyboard navigation before starting the exercise itself. This doesn’t need to be death by PowerPoint, but running through some key facts on keyboard navigation will really help give the exercise some context. Touch on things like:

• Data — look into how many of your customers may use keyboard navigation, by cross referencing national statistics against your customer demographics.
• Who uses keyboard navigation — screen reader users, people with motor conditions, personal preference.
• The value of being inclusive — business benefit, ethics, litigation (the usuals!)

Once your participants have a broad understanding of the value of keyboard navigation, it’s then time to approach the method.

Keyboard navigation basics

For your participants to get the most value from the session, it’s important that they are reasonably comfortable with the premise of keyboard navigation. Don’t overwhelm them! I’ve found providing guidance on a handful of essential commands is sufficient:

• Tab (next link/interactable element)
• Enter (select something)
• Arrow keys (move around)
• Space bar (toggle things)
• Escape (exit or close something)
• Shift (reverse)

Anything beyond that is probably unnecessary. Keeping directions to a minimum will reduce the risk of people feeling anxious in the task itself.

It’s also worth considering pulling together a reference guide with these commands for people to refer to during the task, too.

Introducing the task

When your participants are comfortable with the premise of keyboard navigation, it’s time to introduce the task. I’d recommend against referring to the task any earlier, as it could for a distraction. You need your participants to be focused on what keyboard navigation is, why it’s important, and how to do it, before we get distracted by shiny things like holidays to Bermuda.

Now is the time to outline the task:

1. Explain to the participants that you would like them to try and book a holiday, using a popular package holiday website. I’d recommend assigning them a specific website, so you can ensure that you’ve got minimal duplication.
2. The participants are only allowed to use their keyboard, unless they come up against a blocker that prevents them for progressing any further.
3. Place the participants in breakout rooms to complete the task, so they aren’t distracted by others in the session. If you’ve more than 6 participants, consider pairing them up so they can discuss things together as they go along.
4. The exercise finishes when the participant gets to the checkout (assuming you don’t have budget to pay for your colleagues to go on an actual holiday!)
5. During the exercise, ask the participants to take note of:
   - how did the exercise make you feel?
   - what worked well?
   - What didn’t work well?
   - Did anything surprise you?
   - How often did you face blockers?
   - Did you have to revert to a mouse/trackpad?
   - Did you notice any keyboard-specific considerations, like context menus or “skip links”?
6. Give the users 15-20 minutes to complete the task.

Reflecting

Once the groups have completed the exercise and returned to the “room”, give yourself plenty of time to review everyone’s thoughts — you’ll likely find that the exercise prompts a LOT of discussion! (Spoiler: many holiday websites are awful) However it’s important to ensure the conversation doesn’t fall into a self-righteous echo-chamber — remember that it’s likely never a conscious decision to exclude keyboard navigation, and that it’s almost definitely an awareness gap. Keep the conversation positive — the ultimate goal here is to learn, not just critique.

You’ll hopefully identify some common themes that you can collate, and then you can start discussing the performance of your own website/platform — again, keeping the conversation positive.

Finally, challenge participants your participants to think about what they are going to take away from the exercise — what are they going to do differently? I’d recommend documenting these, then reaching out after a period of time — maybe 6 months — to understand what lasting impact the session has had.

Summary

Hopefully this is all of some use. If you’ve come this far and it isn’t, then well done for persevering! I don’t think this approach is full-proof, but will hopefully form a blueprint for something for you to use at your own organisation.