Building a neurodivergence empathy machine: Mismatch

Phase one: research. I started with a deep dive into the history of the neurodivergence movement and current discourse, which led me to formulating the Empathy Gap: the idea that much of the suffering that neurodivergent people face in various facets of their lives (e.g., access to education, medical bias, bullying) is due to the lack of empathy on behalf of the neurotypical majority. Formal research would of course not be enough without real feedback from the field, and so I ran a first prototype (see here: https://alaouisalma.framer.website/playing-in-snow), which showed me how people responded to a heavily constrained game: empathy primarily depended on similar lived experience. Phase two: design. The experience had to be suitable to a class of 12 students and be playable virtually on Minerva University’s active learning platform. I ended up designing Mismatch, a live, collaborative game that explores how empathy can emerge through collective play after a first iteration (see here: https://alaouisalma.framer.website/playing-in-snow). The game assigns each participant a secret constraint they have to respect while communicating with their group to solve a puzzle. Each constraint is designed to mimic a common struggle neurodivergent people face in everyday communication, making the consequences of those limitations felt in real time and revealing how invisible constraints impact group dynamics, agency, and effort.