Empathy-Driven Design: Website Accessibility vs Aesthetic

I recently completed a brand accessibility audit for a long-term client whose 10-year-old brand was created with little focus on accessibility. They were concerned that some design elements were creating barriers for their customers. Accessibility rules and requirements can also feel like a barrier to a designers freedom. It got me thinking — is there a sweet spot where accessible design and a beautiful aesthetic can coexist?

What is Accessibility?

Accessibility is about removing barriers, enabling people to engage with and understand information. This includes barriers that affect a person's ability to perceive, understand or physically manipulate things. They can occur for many different reasons, including disability, medical conditions, injury, the environment, or age.

It can be society or the environment that is disabling the individual rather than their impairment or difference. For example, videos without subtitles disadvantage anyone watching in a noisy environment, but they disadvantage deaf people all the time.

What Is Empathy-Driven Design?

Empathy-driven design is about understanding and prioritising the real needs, emotions and lived experiences of the people you’re designing for. It moves design thinking from “What looks good?” or “What converts best?” to “What’s it like to walk in this person’s shoes?” or “How can we support them and make them feel seen and valued?”

It's not a new concept - but in a world saturated with digital noise and AI, it's a powerful way to just be human and cut through with relevance, kindness, and trust.

Where UX, Accessibility and Brand Storytelling Meet

You can spot good design a mile off, but great design isn’t something you spot, it’s something you feel.

It’s the feeling when you land on a website and everything just works. The colours feel right, the language speaks to you, the journey makes sense. There are no dead ends, confusion or shouty messages. It feels like a quiet, confident conversation between the brand and the website user. This is empathy-driven design.

In the brand and marketing world, design used to be about first impressions, but now, it’s about lasting ones. Your audience doesn’t just want a good-looking website or a clever bit of copy - they want to feel understood.

Empathy-driven design is about making your user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) speak to humans. Although you ultimately want to get people to click, it's important to help them connect.

Why Accessibility Is Empathy

If your digital presence isn’t accessible, it’s not just a technical oversight - it’s a missed opportunity to welcome more people into your world.

1 in 5 people in the UK live with a disability, that’s a big chunk of your potential audience. Accessible design isn’t just for screen readers or specialist tools - it’s also about people using their phone in the sun, a parent juggling a baby while trying to fill out a form, or an ageing customer who just needs bigger text.

Making your site easy to use for everyone sends a clear message: “We are thinking of you and you matter to us”. That message builds trust faster than any marketing gimmick.

Brands who get empathy right

Airbnb – Welcoming Everyone, Everywhere
Airbnb is one of my favourite websites. Its seamless user experience guides people through listings, with super easy to use filtering for accessible stays and showcases inclusive imagery that represents real people - not just polished lifestyle shots. Their UX says, “You belong here,” which makes the brand be seen as more than just a booking platform - it feels like a community.

Headspace – Mindfulness in Motion
The whole experience of using this app reflects the brand. From its peaceful colour palette to its calm copy, it puts users in an environment designed to lower stress, not increase it. The UX is intuitive and gentle, with every interaction reinforcing the brand’s central purpose: to help people feel better.

How about some of our local heroes?

Norfolk Wildlife Trust
As a nature lover, this brand is close to my heart. Their website is a great balance of education and emotion. It is simplifying complex environmental issues and making them accessible and engaging for all ages and levels of experience.

Good for People. Great for Business.

Empathy isn’t all that fluffy stuff, it’s commercial.

When your website is easier to use, people stay longer. This means they trust faster which makes them convert more confidently. They will come back - and they will tell their friends. It’s a ripple effect that starts with better design, and ends with better business. Empathy-driven design doesn’t just widen your audience - it deepens your brand value. It’s a signal that you care and are not just interested in the transaction. It shows you are looking for a relationship, and the customer is more than just a number. We are all human after all.

Naked is all about relationships

At Naked, we believe the best brands are built on honesty, creativity and proper connection. That’s why empathy sits at the heart of how we design - from beautiful, intuitive websites to marketing campaigns that feel like a genuine conversation, not a sales pitch.

Our job is to help ambitious businesses in Norfolk show up with clarity, confidence and care. What we ultimately want to do is build a brand that makes people feel like, “Yes. This is for me.”