HOW TO MAKE YOUR CONFERENCE ACCESSIBLE – AND WHY YOU SHOULD CARE!

Your event or conference will be more successful if everyone is able to participate fully. The suggestions in this post are going to help you include all participants and speakers, regardless of their abilities. This is not an exhaustive guide to making your conference inclusive and accessible, but a starting point to get you thinking, with concrete actions you can take to improve the accessibility of your event from start to finish. Should you need further information, do feel free to contact me. I’d be happy to help.

DIVERSITY, ACCESSIBILITY, INCLUSION

As an event organizer, you probably have heard that diversity is good. There’s been pushes for increasing diversity at tech conferences – particularly gender and racial diversity. No less important, but less discussed are the benefits of having people with diverse abilities attending the conference. The melting pot is good! Whether you are getting speakers or attendees who are women, or have different racial backgrounds, or have disabilities, they will bring different viewpoints, different work and life experiences. This generally improves the quality of your event for everyone.

Keep in mind that including people with disabilities isn’t simply about people who are blind, or deaf, or are wheelchair users. There are a wide variety of impairments that can affect one’s ability to function at a conference. A lot of these conditions are “invisible” – unless the person tells you about their condition, you’d never know it’s there. Someone might have dyslexia and have trouble reading the program. Someone else might have suffered a traumatic brain injury while playing sports as a teen and have problems concentrating in noisy environments. Yet another person might have problems differentiating colors, a somewhat minor impairment, but it could cause problems if the speakers are relying on red and green on their slides or you are using green and red to differentiate two streams of talks. Some people have mobility impairments – they use a cane, or crutches. Long distances between venues could cause them problems. We live in an aging society. Many people are experiencing changing sight, making it difficult to read name badges or slides with a lot of text and tiny font. And remember that some impairments are temporary, like the speaker who broke her leg a week before the event.

Increased accessibility and inclusion will make everyone feel welcome. But a one size fits all approach isn’t likely to work for everyone.

Beyond specific elements that will increase accessibility, your willingness to adapt on the move will prove your inclusive mindset.

Accessibility and inclusion can happen at all stages of your conference. We will discuss some items related to your website, venue, presentations, social events, and more.

How have you made your conference more accessible for all people?

If you are interested in learning more about Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) or how to make accessibility a natural part of your business through the application of Corporate Social Responsibility, please contact Sandra Broekhof @ 416-579-1035 orsandra_broekhof@sympatico.ca