 OK, great. Can you all hear me? OK. So yeah, hi, everyone. This morning, I'm going to talk to you about ways to make your events inclusive. So I'm going to start with a story. Last year at a WordCamp I attended, I overheard a bunch of people talking. One of the women in the group had a cane, and they were just taking a break, taking advantage of a bench, and chatting about the conference. All of them agreed that they were learning a lot. The woman sounded excited. She thought that WordPress could provide her with new job opportunities, because in tech, she could get a job working from home. Now, I don't know anything about her situation, but I do know that a lot of people with disabilities are on or underemployed. The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is about twice that for those without. Now, we know in the tech world that everyone is always hiring, but it can be hard to get there without a network. Our events, like WordCamps and Meetups, can expand attendees' networks, but only if they can get there. By having accessible events, all people can come and learn about the opportunities in your area. I'm Kelly Duane, and I'm a developer at Automatic. I've been a WordCamp Boston organizer for the past four years, and a Meetup organizer for about six. You can find me at Rael on Twitter. Feel free to tweet at me during the talk, and then there'll also be some time at the end for questions, and I'm always happy to talk one on one later. So in this talk, I'm specifically covering accessibility for people with disabilities. People might also face access barriers due to money or social pressures around gender, race, or religion. Some of these suggestions will help out those folks as well, but disability is the focus of this talk. As I go through this talk, you might also notice that I use people with disabilities and disabled people almost interchangeably, but I don't use euphemisms like differently-abled or special needs. The disability community that I'm familiar with prefers this, but it is an English-speaking and US-centric community, so your local community might be different. Additionally, specific disability communities have different preferences, and specific people might have their own preferences too. So make sure you look for and listen to local voices when planning your event and writing your content. A lot of the language around disability can also be used as insults, so certain words are considered offensive. While others are being reclaimed by disabled people, they aren't yet accepted group terms. If you're corrected on your terminology, be respectful and not angry. So quickly, what is disability? Most people would think about medical conditions, someone in a wheelchair. They might describe this person as suffering, as confined to a wheelchair. However, if you actually talk to disabled people, you'll hear a different sentiment. Essie Smith says, mobility devices like canes and wheelchairs are liberating, allowing people to move around in comfort and live full, active lives. This gets at an emerging definition of disability, where disability comes out as a result of impairments interacting with a badly designed environment. Traditionally, disability has been thought of as a problem with the person. They can't walk, they can't see, and so on, and they're defined by these limitations. Over the last few years, a new way of thinking about disability has emerged. This is called the social model of disability, because it defines disability in the context of society as a whole, rather than as a single person's problem. Jonathan Mooney talks about this mindset in his talk, The Gift. It's not their minds or bodies that truly disable them. It's how the environments react to those differences. That's where the disability lies. Folks don't have disability. They experience disability in environments that aren't accessible and inclusive. For example, someone with a mobility impairment who uses a wheelchair can navigate just fine in a world where there are always ramps and working elevators and no stairs, but the same person in this world is disabled by the lacks of ramps in many places. In this talk, I'm gonna give you multiple ways to improve the environment at your events to let more people take part. But maybe you're thinking, I don't know any disabled people in my community. Does this really apply to me? It does. There are definitely people with disabilities in the WordPress community, and in the EU in general, about one in six people have a disability. If you start making your events more accessible, you'll probably find out that there were people wanting to join in all along. When you're running an event looking for speakers or giving a talk, you can safely assume that there are people with disabilities in your audience. So this is a quote from a post about how SourceCon focused on the human experience of their conference. Notably, none of the specific tasks we took on were particularly challenging, and many weren't even expensive. And that's just the point I want to make. Most of the things I'm about to suggest won't cost you much in budget. They just need a little more pre-planning. So let's start. First and basics. Most countries have anti-discrimination laws that require public spaces be accessible for wheelchair users. In the US, though, this only applies to new venues. Older venues have less of a mandate. I'm not sure how it's implemented in the EU or in other countries, but either way, don't just assume it'll work out. Try to do a walkthrough of your space before committing to it. Think about these questions and try to imagine people's experiences. Where is the wheelchair-accessible entrance? Is there one? Is it in the back of the building through a sketchy alley near the trash? Does it have heavy, non-automatic doors? These are less ideal, but workable. If it's a separate entrance, you'll want to make sure people coming in aren't lost, which might mean you need to assign a volunteer to that door all day. Is there handicap parking available? See if you can work with your venue to offer closer parking permits for people who need it. Are there steps into the presentation rooms? Even just one can be a barrier to wheelchair users. If there's not a wheelchair-accessible entrance, try looking for another venue. Where is an accessible bathroom? You'll want at least one bathroom or a stall that's big enough for a wheelchair, and ideally big enough for an assisted transfer. While you're at it, you should also work with your venue to have a gender-neutral bathroom available. Make sure you have clear signage to these and that volunteers know where they are. Do your elevators lock after office hours? More a question for after-work meetups or after-parties, but definitely something to check. This can happen in smaller, shared office buildings. You don't want to have to call the building management because someone got trapped upstairs. So while doing your venue walkthrough, you should also ask for a map. On this, label any non-accessible entrances, all the bathrooms, elevators, and event rooms. Use this later to map out accessible routes around the space. Make sure you can navigate to every room an attendee might use. If you can't, rethink that room or venue. Try to do this where every event activity is happening, conference talks, after-party, breakout areas, and so on. Clean up the annotated maps and post them on your website. Having this info will show that you're taking accessibility seriously. As a bonus, if you're recommending hotels or you know what hotel most people stay in, add directions from that, too. Add information about accessible transit options if your city has that. For WordCamp Boston, that meant telling people to go to the MBTA's website for info on accessible stops. The person looking will know better what access needs they have. Once it comes to setting up your space, make sure you have enough space between seat rows for people to get up without distracting everyone. Also have some open spaces for people who bring their own chairs, wheelchairs. Space these around the room so they have a choice of where to sit, too. We'll talk more about signs later, but put up signs everywhere. You want to enable people to orient themselves, plus you don't want to have to direct people to that far auditorium all day. A quiet area is also important. Going from a dark conference room to bright, busy hallways can be hard on people with sensory sensitivities like autistic people. A good quiet area is an easily accessible space with nothing going on. A small classroom or some open space away from the rest of the conference works. It's also nice if the lighting in the room is set a little dim. The only rule for this space is that attendees shouldn't disrupt others in the space. Quietly working or using sensory toys is fine, but listening to music or talking is not. Don't put this behind a staff member or a locked door because it's possible someone who needs the break space won't be able to ask to go in. A short side story about quiet areas. Some conferences might also call these quiet rooms or sensory rooms. I was at a disability-related conference last year in which the audience was mostly disabled people. At the introduction, they mentioned having a sensory room off to the side. An attendee got up and thanked them for not calling it a quiet room as other conferences had because to them, quiet room was a term institutions used for isolation rooms and it carried a lot of negativity. I hadn't known that, so now I make an effort to say quiet area, which is probably going to be a room, but it doesn't imply being locked in. You could also say sensory room, but you would want to make clear whether you'll have fidgets or other sensory tools available. Anyway, on to the next section. Tape out your walkways. Which looks like this. This is a photo from AdaCamp Montreal showing the taped lines on the floor and the words keep clear in the middle. The idea is that people can congregate and chat on the sides near the wall, but the middle should be kept open for people to walk through. This is great for everyone, but it's made for people using wheelchairs who are generally not at standing eye level so people don't move out of the way. Taping out pathways makes getting places easier. So what sort of things should you do before your event happens? Make sure your website is accessible. I think most of the available themes on wordcamp.org are, but your best bet is to pick the latest default theme or the new campsite theme that's in beta now. These lay the foundation, but you'll need to keep your design and content accessible too. Web accessibility is its own entire topic, so here are just some quick tips. Keep your content simple and use headings correctly, not just as decoration. When deciding on branding, pick colors with good contrast and use legible fonts and make sure to add captions to any non-decorative images. After you've picked your speakers, check with them about any accommodations they might need. This might mean you'll have to arrange to get an adjustable lectern or table or a ramp for your stage. You might need to work with them to arrange a sign language interpreter for their talk. If they've never given a talk before, you'll want to describe the process and then you both can work together to figure out if they need anything, which you should probably do with all your speakers. When selling tickets, add a question about accommodations. Let attendees explain their needs. Don't try to ask about impairments or medical conditions in an effort to prescribe accommodations. You'll probably get it wrong and you likely don't need to know why someone uses a cane. On screen, I have the WordCamp US registration form, which simply asks if the attendee needs accommodations. We ask the same question at WordCamp Boston and we got a few requests mostly about parking. For meals, if you're offering, make sure you ask if attendees have dietary restrictions or preferences. This should be a checkbox question so that people can indicate if they're gluten-free and vegetarian. Some people will check multiple boxes because they'll eat anything, which can be confusing when you see a vegan omnivore. If you're worried about it, you could reach out and check with the attendee. Lastly, add a space for people to explain any allergies. Once you have this info, you should work with your catering staff to make sure all meals will meet your attendees' needs. If you can't feed someone with a certain diet, let them know and see if you can work something else out, like recommending a local restaurant. Make sure you or the caterers label everything in each meal in case someone registered late or forgot to add their allergen. Sometimes, also, people downplay diet things that aren't allergies but cause discomfort so they might not report on your form about it. But by labeling food, you give them the opportunity to avoid it. So what else should you do before your event? Blog about it. Any new info you have is a blog post. Publish your event schedule early and describe the event space on your event site with those maps from earlier. For disabled attendees, this will build confidence that the space is actually accessible and it reduces anxiety to know about a space and the schedule before getting there. The great thing about this step is that the more you post on your site, the more you're in front of people and the more word will spread about your event. So next up, we'll talk about presentations at your event. A lot of conferences lately have started using cart services or live captioning. This is beneficial to anyone deaf, hard of hearing, with audio processing issues or just someone who's distracted. That said, some deaf people prefer sign language interpreters so you might find that's a request. The person requesting might be able to point you to interpreter services or your venue might have connections. If you want to offer sign language interpreting by default, you'll want to find an interpreter who will use the predominant language in your area. In the US, this is easy because most everyone uses American Sign Language, but like spoken languages, there are different sign languages in different countries. This is another reason to ask for any accommodation requests on registration. This is also an area where you'll need to add budget and organizer time since you're paying for a service. You'll need to coordinate with your captioners and venue to get any text setup they might need like an additional screen to project the captions. Here, I would suggest having a role, a separate role of accessibility organizer and let this person handle that coordination. While you're communicating with your speakers or if you are a speaker at events, make sure you do the following, use the microphones. Not only will those project your voice clearer than trying to shout, it will also pick up on the video recording and it'll help the captioners transcribe more accurately. If you're taking audience questions, give the have an audience mic or make sure to repeat the question into the mic before answering. This also gives you a chance to think of the answer. Describe any visuals on your slides. Don't assume that everyone can see what your chart says, instead describe it. If you use photos that are relevant to the topic, describe them. If you're showing a video, make sure it's captioned. And don't overuse animations. Flashing animations can trigger migraines. If you have a looping animation while you're talking, it can be very distracting. You want to keep people focused on your talk, so keep your slides simple. So social events, whether a conference after party or just a networking night with your local meetup, should also be as accessible as possible. Everything I've said applies to social events too, including the presentation tips. If you have someone talking to a group of over a dozen people, give them a mic. Have seating throughout the space so that folks can still be included in discussions. Not everyone can stand for over two hours and often seating is put at the edges so if someone needs a seat, they look antisocial. If you have drinks, try to keep the focus off of the alcoholic ones by also offering mocktails, soda, teas, and absolutely make sure to have water. If you have food, the same tips apply here. Label all of your ingredients. Avoid loud flashy spaces, like bars with loud music or clubs that have strobe lights. These can be overwhelming for autistic people or can trigger migraines, vertigo, and so on. I might also suggest a few policies for your events. On screen is a photo of two flyers from a conference called Autistic's Present. One says, fragrance-free, perfumes, lotions, soaps, and other scented products can trigger allergies are not sensory-friendly are an access barrier for individuals with chemical sensitivities. Please be considerate and fragrance-free. The other says no flash. Flash photography can cause seizures and photosensitive individuals, can trigger migraines are not sensory-friendly. Please turn off the flash. So these are two simple things you can ask your attendees to do, which in turn will make your space more sensory-friendly and inclusive. Some conferences also acknowledge that not every person wants their photo taken. Whatever the reason, it should be respected. Ada Camp addressed this by having three line yards, a red, a yellow, and a green, which signified permission levels for photos. The green meant that you were okay with photos without the need to ask. Yellow meant, please ask permission first, and red meant don't even ask. These also have different printed patterns. The red has black diagonal stripes, the yellow has a single stripe through the center, and the green has no print, so they're still distinguishable by colorblind people. Another colored badge system can be used for communication preferences. In this system, attendees are given three color cards, which they can swap out throughout the conference. Like the photo system, here, green means the person is open to talking to anyone. Yellow, only for talking to people you know, and red for spectator mode, not interested or able to talk to anyone. These are useful for people with anxiety or who have trouble in social situations. They make it explicit whether someone is open to conversation, and there's no need to try to read nonverbal cues which some people have trouble with. They're designed to be changeable. For example, if a situation gets overwhelming, a person can go from green to yellow and not worry about having to introduce themselves to new people. These work best if you can explain to everyone what they mean and encourage their use. Okay, at this point, I've mentioned signage a few times. In case it hasn't been clear yet, put signs up everywhere. Your attendees will feel better if they can orient themselves. Someone outside your venue should immediately know how to get inside and wants inside to registration, and then to the talk they want to see. If you're used to user experience or user flows, you want to do that for your event. Make sure you have accessible entrances called out too. That person should be able to get to their destination whether they use a wheelchair, crutches, or none of the above. At WordCamp Boston last year, we also tried printing out larger print schedules. The trend has become to have these small schedules on the inside of your badge, which is convenient, but also assumes that you can read the small print. Ours were just full-size printer paper versions of the badge schedule, which at least doubled the text size. I have to admit I was surprised by how popular these were. We ended up needing to print more during the day. So all of the suggestions so far have been for your conference or meetup, but what about your organizer meetings? Those should be accessible too. You don't want to exclude possible co-organizers. You can use most of the suggestions I've mentioned. You probably won't need live transcription, but you could be open to running meetings through text. At the end of the presentation, I've also linked to some guides on accessible meetings for more specific tips. Luckily with a set group of organizers, you can work together to create an environment that works for everyone. My last big suggestion is to have one person on your team step into an accessibility organizer role. This person would be the point of contact for accommodation requests, working with your venue to make them happen. They would also work with interpreters or cart providers and your volunteers, day of, to make sure everyone's needs are met. So you're probably not organizing every conference you go to, I hope. But there are still things you can do as an attendee or even a sponsor to make sure you're not excluding anyone. As an attendee, respect everyone's boundaries. That sounds simple, right? Well, this means if you see someone disabled having trouble with something like opening a door, ask before you try to help. Especially don't touch anyone or their assistive devices without permission. If you're talking to someone who is an interpreter or aid, talk to the person, not the interpreter. There are more tips for specific disabilities and again, I have links at the end. And I will post these slides on the hashtag on Twitter. So don't be a gatekeeper. If you see someone you don't know, use an accommodation. Trust that they know best for themselves and it's not your place to interfere. For example, sometimes people who use wheelchairs can get up and walk short distances. But that does not mean they don't need the wheelchair. If you're worried that someone is taking advantage of some limited resource, grabbing all of the vegan sandwiches, for example, talk to the organizers. Try to be sensory friendly. Maybe skip the heavy perfume or go light on smoking during the conference. And if you do go out to smoke, stay away from the entry so people can walk through and walk in without going through a smoke cloud. If you're a sponsor, the same tips apply, but there are some more. Again, respect boundaries. In this case, if someone comes up to your booth, maybe with big headphones on and doesn't want to engage, respect that. Don't make a big fuss about it. Obviously you're going to be welcoming, but don't drag someone reluctant into the center of attention. Have an accessible booth. A lot of word camps just use tables, which are okay, but some larger events have almost many room setups with seating and TVs and swag inside the space. Seating is a great accessibility plus, but make sure that a wheelchair user can still get into your booth, at least with enough to engage with people. That's about a meter space between objects, probably more if people might be standing around. Another repeated tip, but sensory friendliness applies to sponsor swag too. Some examples of sensory unfriendly items would be things that make noise or flash a lot. Basically, if you wouldn't give it to a five-year-old you had to share a room with, don't use it for swag. So at this point, I've told you a lot of different things you can do, but sometimes it's easier to understand why a person would need these things by hearing from real people. If you're interested in the why, the great thing about WordPress is that people blog with it. There are a lot of disabled content creators who talk about their daily lives and experiences. Sometimes it highlights how much we need accessibility. For example, Dave Hingsburger blogs about his life and the way his disability affects him. He uses a wheelchair. In this post, he's talking about going to see a theater show and how much extra work he would have to do to ensure he could actually see the show. He says, I simply didn't want to go to the theater while being disabled. I didn't want to spend hours on the phone finding tickets and then hours worrying what's going to go wrong this time. Ri is an autistic woman who blogs at oughtnot.wordpress.com. Similar to Dave, she also spends a lot of time preparing before going to an event. Events that include more information about the space and schedule are more accessible for her. Otherwise, she'd spend mental energy at the event trying to navigate instead of being able to enjoy herself. These stories of inaccessibility are everywhere. Recently, I read a piece about the accessibility of restaurants and Twitter lit up with replies about bad experiences. One tweet I pulled from the replies says, if you think I sound harsh, consider that last year, one restaurant staff's idea of accessible was to offer to carry me up the stairs. Multiple people replied that this has happened to them too. And think about if that happened to you. You were ready to go out to dinner. You get to the restaurant and some stranger has to carry you inside. This is not the experience we want people to have, but by planning with accessibility in mind, we would know to skip the restaurant with no accessible entrance. At the beginning of this talk, I said that focusing on people with disabilities will make your event better for everyone. For example, by thinking about the person with a severe food allergy, you know to label all of your food, which will help anyone with even minor food preferences. By keeping your room's wheelchair accessible and making sure there are elevators, you'll also help the person who injured her knee before the conference. By providing a schedule ahead of time for people with anxiety or autism, you'll also help the parent who can only attend for a short while and wants to figure out when is best. But most importantly, you'll be welcoming of people who often can't attend conferences and networking events and might be left out of professional opportunities. So thanks for listening and I hope you'll start including at least some of these suggestions in your upcoming events. Thank you, Kelly. Now we will have few minutes for some Q&A, so we want to make some questions. So the question is, it's a lot of things I've mentioned, is one person really enough for as an accessibility organizer? No, I think that it has to be the whole team that is working on it and that one person is the point of contact, but the whole team needs to be thinking about these things. Yes, will you please repeat what you said about the social events half sitting from outer space? Oh, yeah, so sometimes you have like, so the question is, repeat what I said about having seating throughout the space. So a lot of social events will be like food and eating and you might have tall tables, but no seating. So everyone has to stand around. So if the idea is instead to have some chairs around so that people can still sit. Yeah. So you talk a lot about disabilities, about what it is, and sometimes people will chairs, but do they have any specific fit for people with disabilities in Asia or people with disabilities in Europe? So for people with hearing or vision disabilities, I didn't, so there are some things that I called out specifically like the allergies. As for specific things for maybe someone with a hearing disability would be the captioning or having fine language interpreters for blind people or people with vision impairments. I didn't cover that because I actually didn't find a lot of information about that and I would love to learn more. The most important thing for them might be accessible websites, but yeah, that is something that I would definitely love to include in my next talk if I give this again. Anyone else? Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thank you.