Recently, I stumbled upon a collection of award-winning projects showcased by my college, where multiple honors went to designs addressing hearing impairment. But as I examined them closely, a wave of discomfort and indignation washed over me.
The institution’s approach to accessible design reeks of what I can only describe as “performative empathy” – a hollow pretense of social consciousness that rings utterly false.
What truly infuriates me is the unmistakable whiff of able-bodied arrogance permeating these projects. Beneath their flashy concepts and technological sophistication lies a fundamental failure to grasp the genuine needs of the hearing-impaired community. I can’t shake the disturbing suspicion that disability was simply used as a convenient theme to rack up accolades.
What breaks my heart is this: despite design programs preaching empathy, and even after working on healthcare projects myself, I’ve realized able-bodied designers can never truly walk in disabled users’ shoes. Our solutions inevitably carry an unconscious patronizing tone. Worse still, schools rarely provide access to actual user groups, leaving us to design in an echo chamber of assumptions.
Professors obsess over innovation and conceptual flair, resulting in impractical fantasies that would be laughable if they weren’t so tragic. Too often, accessible design becomes just another vanity project – a platform to flex technical muscles or a golden ticket to awards, created in complete isolation from real users.
In this twisted system, people with disabilities are reduced to props – invisible tools to showcase a designer’s supposed progressiveness, while their actual struggles remain ignored in the shadows.
Nicole Hall 
Eli Cruz 
Audrey Ramos
It’s frustrating when accessibility efforts feel more like a showcase than genuine change. These projects miss the mark by not involving users like you in the process. Hearing-impaired perspectives are clearly valuable but overlooked. It’s disappointing to see arrogance overshadow inclusivity.
It’s frustrating when “inclusive” designs end up being more about looking good than actually helping. I’ve seen similar projects that seem to miss the point entirely. True accessibility requires listening to people with disabilities, not just assuming what they need. These projects feel like they’re solving problems that don’t exist for the designers themselves.
It’s frustrating when “inclusive” designs feel more like a checkbox exercise than genuine solutions. I totally get your frustration—there’s often a gap between intention and execution in accessibility projects. These designs seem to miss the mark by not involving users with hearing impairments from the start. It’s about listening to and learning from the community you’re trying to help.