My purpose in Jan 2023: Empathic equity in action

Statement of Purpose

Empathic equity in action

Kylin Follenweider, January 2023

My mission

My goal is to help close the under-employment gap for people with disabilities.  Whatever work I do going forward, I want it to be in service of helping people overcome systems and processes that were not built to support their needs and, therefore in my opinion, fail everyone.

The problem

First some stats, in 2021, only 7% of companies had inclusive hiring practices, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities was 4x the US national average, 8x for people with neuro-atypical disabilities, and 85% of people with autism reported never having held a job, despite being qualified. This is unacceptable and clearly shows major gaps in the accepted hiring practices at most companies. However, getting hired through the terrifying interview process is only the beginning. The challenges keep coming, and many report trouble getting along with coworkers, keeping a job, and/or being promoted, due directly to their disability and not to a quality issue with work.

Not only does everyone deserve to be valued and supported for what they can contribute, instead of being excluded for what they cannot do, but any system that excludes skillful, talented, and passionate people due to disabilities is broken. There are est. 1 in 4 qualified adults with disabilities, which represent a largely untapped skill-base that would benefit any industry.

There is a great concept that has been surfacing in the literature lately: disabilities are permanent, temporary, or situational. It is harder to diagram this with “hidden conditions”, like ADHD and ASD, but fairly easy with the example of not being able to use an arm: it may be broken (temporary), carrying something like groceries or a baby (situational), or the person may have lost it, either due to a birth defect, or an accident (permanent). This sits well with my long held belief that some of us need help all the time, but it could be any one of us at any time. 

Another example, from XXX, explains that to use their tools, there is no such thing as “not being disabled enough”. This is doubly true for ND and recognizes that tools for people with disability can help everyone.

We build better when we build for everyone.

Even more recently, I’ve been thinking about equity, empathy, and adaptability. Empathic equity expects systems, processes, work environments, and tools to adapt to the needs of the employed, not the employer.  Unlike equality, equity recognizes that people need different things (like giving a short person a place at the front or something to stand on), empathic equity recognizes that these needs change.

My solution

In this day and age, making the workplace more inclusive means making technology more inclusive, and technology means user interfaces (UI) and digital user experience (DUX). Unfortunately, while Accessibility (a11y) and such standards have had significant in-roads in many tech industries, accessible tech is often directed at those who use it, instead of those who build it.

So I still want to build software that connects people and UIs that are so intuitive and seamless, they no longer represent barriers but build bridges, for inclusive participation, communication, and collaboration.  However, this means the tools for the builders needs to be more inclusive.