I think a good simulation would be to take people and put them into a very different culture from their own, and instruct the people from the different culture to react to anything that didn't fit into their culture as confusing or unacceptable, or to deliberately misread what they meant to do.
You also need to caution people that simulations are not particularly accurate, even the best ones. To use a physical example, say you are trying to simulate being blind by putting on a blindfold. Unlike a person who has been blind for years or for a lifetime, you have no experience with finding your way around, and you haven't got a good set of skills to deal with blindness. So, it will seem more overwhelming than it ought to, because you can only simulate short-term, newly acquired disability. You also won't be experiencing any of the social differences; even if you did (for example you could borrow a wheelchair to use for a few days) you would still not experience the changes in yourself that come from having a disability and seeing society's reaction to that.
People often use simulations to try to get others to understand their lives, but without those cautions, you can send entirely the wrong message.
Personally, I think that simulations work best to teach people who are trying to accommodate people with various disabilities how to set up those accommodations. Say, you're an architect and you want to be sure that a wheelchair can easily get around your building; well, it'd be very useful to learn to use one yourself and see how you get around the building in it. You wouldn't be experienced but it would be better than just following a building code.
28 Apr 2012, 4:17 pm
