As I sat down today, just a few days before Thanksgiving, I started reflecting on what we do as  accessible website designers and how we do it. I started thinking about EMPATHY and the process of creating accessible websites that are not just ADA compliant, but offer all visitors a better user experience. And that led my thoughts toward the process of persona development, and its utility for helping custom web designers ensure their websites are accessible and inclusive to all website visitors.

Too often, web designers fall into the trap of designing for a narrow group of 'typical' users. But when we’re designing a website, an app, or any digital experience, we’re really creating a space for other people—people with diverse needs, perspectives, and challenges. If we aren't considering those differences deeply, then we're not truly designing—we're just decorating.

I'm not here to shame. I've been developing websites for about 28 years now and its only been in recent years that we have expanded how we use personas and think beyond  use-cases for "normal people". Just writing "normal people" makes me cringe. Who the F is "normal" anyhow? Normal is boring. 

For a long time, I only thought of personas as a vehicle for getting a client to stop saying "me". Clients who use "I" and "me" through the web design process drive me bonkers. As soon as I heard an "I" or a "me", I'd immediately pivot and start in on creating personas with the client. Its a fantastic exercise for getting clients to focus more on visitors to their website instead of themselves. And not only do personas help to pull clients out of their shoes, they become a tool for the entire team to assess the usability of a website or any user experience. 

I don't believe there are right or wrong ways to build personas. I think the approach will depend a lot on budget, time, and the nature of the project. At one level, you can invest a lot of time and money into  data analysis of all sorts of user types. Or you can apply take a less formal approach and build lists of user types - and here using AI would be really helpful. Bu then apply human empathy and intuition to round out the picture of each. The goal is to understand the context in which people will use our product: what are they trying to get done, what gets in their way, and what keeps them going? Every one of these details shapes how someone uses what we build, and that’s what we try to capture in a persona.

Quickly, let me address AI. I am a heavy AI user, but while AI can assist in gathering and analyzing large datasets, and even help identify patterns in user behavior, it has limitations. AI might spot trends, but it doesn't bring the lived experience or the nuanced emotional insights that real conversations and observations provide. AI can’t truly understand the frustration behind an accessibility barrier or the feeling of empowerment when those barriers are removed. This is why human involvement is crucial in developing personas that reflect genuine empathy.

Now a persona isn’t just a set of bullet points—age, location, job title—it’s a window into their world. It includes their abilities and or disabilities, their goals and their frustrations. Creating  in-depth personas forces us to think about the real challenges our users face and make choices that can actually solve those problems.

So here are a few examples of personas that might not be typically considered:

Senior with Cognitive Decline and Shaky Hands
Imagine Margaret, a 78-year-old woman dealing with some cognitive decline and shaky hands. Navigating a complex UX is incredibly frustrating for her. She struggles with small buttons, dropdown menus, and anything requiring precise clicks. The shakiness in her hands means using a mouse can be a real challenge—double-clicking becomes almost impossible, and scrolling without accidentally clicking something is frustrating. Margaret benefits from a design that offers large, easily clickable buttons, clear instructions, and an interface that avoids unnecessary complexity. Simplifying her experience doesn’t just make it usable—it makes her feel capable and independent.

Person with Colorblindness
Meet Jake, a 35-year-old graphic designer who’s one of the 1 in 10 men with colorblindness. Jake’s colorblindness makes it difficult for him to distinguish between reds and greens, which means any design that relies heavily on color cues is problematic. Think about forms that indicate errors with a red outline or charts that use colors as the only differentiator. For Jake, an accessible experience involves alternative indicators—icons, text labels, patterns—that help convey information in ways that don’t depend on color. By understanding Jake’s perspective, we learn how vital it is to think beyond just visual color signals.

Blind User Relying on a Screen Reader
Then there's Sarah, a 29-year-old who is blind and uses a screen reader to navigate websites. For Sarah, the frustration comes when a site isn’t built with accessibility in mind—images without alt text, buttons with vague labels like “click here,” or complex navigation that requires too many steps to find information. For her, a well-designed experience means clear alt descriptions, logical and simple navigation, and ARIA labels that provide more context. When we create personas like Sarah, we start to understand how much of our content needs structure and clarity to make it accessible through assistive technology.

Senior with Low Vision Using a Screen Magnifier
Finally, consider George, a 72-year-old retiree with low vision who relies on a screen magnifier to browse online. George’s experience is all about zooming in, sometimes up to 300%, to read text or see elements on the page. For him, poorly designed layouts that break apart when zoomed or text that overlaps images can make a site completely unusable. George needs a design that supports high zoom levels without breaking and uses strong contrast to make text stand out. By understanding George, we realize how important it is to build flexible, robust layouts that adapt to different ways of viewing.

Personas like these aren’t just theoretical—they’re a practical tool to help us make better design decisions. AI tools can help highlight where some of the most common usability issues are, but it's the human designers who can understand the 'why' behind these issues and empathize with users. When our personas reflect a diverse range of needs—people with mobility challenges, cognitive disabilities, or just folks who are getting older—we’re much more likely to design something that works for everyone.

Personas can also create emotional connections that help the whole design team understand why certain choices are important. Like, if we know "Evelyn"—one of our personas—struggles with anxiety when forms are long or confusing, it reminds us to keep our forms simple and easy to follow. These stories give real meaning to our design choices; they’re not just best practices—they’re about real people and their experiences.

Empathy-driven persona development ensures that accessibility isn’t just a checklist item. It’s baked into everything we do. When we truly understand the different contexts in which our users live, we can anticipate issues and come up with solutions that actually work for them. It helps us move beyond just complying with standards and towards building experiences that respect every user’s dignity and independence.

So, as we gather around our tables this Thanksgiving, let’s bring empathy into our work too—to create digital spaces that are welcoming for everyone. Let’s make sure we’re thinking deeply about our users, including as many different perspectives as we can, and remembering that good design isn’t just about looking pretty. It’s about making life a little easier, a little kinder, for everyone who interacts with what we create. Let’s make empathy a part of everything we do, all year long.

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