Skip to main content

The ENABLE Model

The ENABLE Model is a practical, public ethnography that documents how people intervene or compensate when accessibility breaks down, and how systems can be designed to deliver care instead

Developed from a graduate capstone at Harvard Medical School

Early Neglect Allows Barriers Limiting Equity.

End-users Navigate Asymmetrical Barriers Laboring Excessively.

Read the modelBrowse manifestations
Lawrence Weru delivering the keynote address at the 26th Annual Evidence for Success Disability Conference

Premiered as a keynote address

The ENABLE Model was introduced at the 26th Annual Evidence for Success Disability Conference, hosted by the University of Arizona's Institute for Human Development.

Use the docs as the canonical reference, the taxonomy pages as the shared vocabulary, and the manifestations as evidence-backed case studies of how accessibility gets built, deferred, compensated for, or withdrawn in the real world.

Start with the model

Learn the core argument, then use the practical guide to trace any accessibility failure from missed builder-side care to the burdens people carry afterward.

Use the real-world corpus

Manifestation pages document organizations, tools, institutions, and strategies as public ethnography of accessibility in practice.

Follow the framing

The blog explains the theory, stakes, and research logic behind the site, and helps connect the docs to broader debates about disability and access.

If you are arriving from search or an AI assistant, start with The E.N.A.B.L.E. Model for the core definition, then move to How to wield the model for the practical workflow.

What's inside

Builder-side Interventions10

Acts of care that builders take to prevent barriers.

Navigator-side Compensations10

Labor disabled people carry when builders fail to act.

Forces that Disable6

Structural conditions that produce and maintain inaccessibility.

Forces that Enable1

Structural conditions that produce and protect accessibility.

Manifestations108

Organizations, tools, campaigns, and people documented as public ethnography of how accessibility gets built, deferred, or compensated for.