Empathy From Within: User-Enacted Design With Autistic Young Adults

The ‘double empathy problem’ highlights the challenge of mutual empathy between autistic and non-autistic individuals. In applying this concept to supportive technology design, it has been argued that designers cannot accurately imagine the unique experiences and needs of autistic users. We explain that co-design, suggested to bridge the gap, falls victim to the same criticism. We decided to start from the opposite point of view, which we call ‘user-enacted design’. Instead of creating conventional co-design tools that enable designers to empathise and design with end users, we developed tools with which autistic individuals can design their own supportive interventions. We present five such tools and show how they helped autistic young adults design supportive devices that made sense to them, but of which others may not fully understand the rationale and underlying design decisions. Additionally, we reflect on and reframe the contemporary role of the professional designer in this process.