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Welcome to the ENABLE Model

The ENABLE Model is a field guide for making accessibility happen -- and for understanding what happens when it doesn't.

When systems withdraw care, disabled people are left to carry the cost.
Not all exclusion is deliberate, but all of it disables someone.

ENABLE maps the gap between the care that builders should deliver -- and the labor that disabled people are forced to carry when that care is missing.

It shows:

🔎 Explore the Model​

🛠 Pre-launch Interventions​

Acts of care that prevent inaccessibility before something ships -- requirement setting, design, development, QA, triage, and more.

🧷 Post-launch Compensations​

What disabled people are forced to do when care is absent: rely on assistive tech, invent workarounds, ask for help, file complaints, or walk away.

🧨 Forces That Disable​

Bias. Silence. Turnover. Ambiguity. Instability. Abandonment.
These aren't accidents. They’re structural, cultural, and organizational forces that disable people by withdrawing access.

🛡️ Forces That Enable​

Storytelling. Protest. Policy. Community. Institutional memory.
These are the counterweights that push back against abandonment and exclusion.

🌐 Manifestations​

Real-world examples of organizations, tools, and campaigns that resist neglect and sustain access in practice.

🎯 Who is this for?​

  • Builders designing, coding, and shipping
  • Activists holding institutions accountable
  • Funders and policymakers shaping priorities
  • Educators teaching the next generation
  • Teammates who don’t want anyone left behind

💡 Why ENABLE?​

Accessibility needs more than checklists.
It needs language for care, clarity about burden, and a framework for when and where action must take place.

ENABLE =
Early Neglect Allows Barriers Limiting Equity
— and —
End-users Navigate Asymmetric Barriers, Laboring Excessively

It maps the two halves of accessibility:

  • Pre-launch interventions -- when care is embedded upstream
  • Post-launch compensations -- when care is missing, and the burden shifts downstream

Access isn’t fragile -- until systems make it that way. ENABLE helps you change that.