7 things to know about #DisabilityStories on July 15

1. #DisabilityStories is an all-day, international conversation. It was organized by museum folk but will include diverse voices from communities and groups around the country — add yours! More background info.
2. #DisabilityStories takes place tomorrow (Wednesday, July 15, 2015) all day. Jump in whenever works for you!
3. The hashtag is #DisabilityStories (If you have a few extra characters, add #ADA25 to capture the attention of US audiences tuned into the topic as well.)
4. To better understand how chats like this impact audiences and relate to learning, we’re doing a survey. Please tweet a link to the 3-minute survey throughout the day to gather audience feedback: http://bit.ly/DS_survey I’ll share what we learn as much as possible.
5. The chat takes place all day. Loose schedule of just some of the things that will be happening: http://bit.ly/disability_stories
6. My team is planning to Storify as much as we can, probably mostly focusing on the things on our schedule. If you spot a great tweet, screen shot it or Storify! Providing other ways to access the conversation is a really good idea, especially with this topic. I might also live blog here— but that may depend on caffeine levels, which have been known to fluctuate.
7. If someone shares a particularly interesting personal story, feel free to ask them to participate in the Disability Visibility Project. “The Disability Visibility Project believes disabled lives matter and each person has a story of value. Each individual story challenges stereotypes and the conventional wisdom that the disability experience is monolithic.” Boom.
8. The Federal Social Media Accessibility Toolkit is a good resource for making tomorrow’s chat accessible. A few basics: Avoid using unfamiliar acronyms that would sound strange if read by a screen reader. Camel case for multiple words within a hashtag; that is, capitalize the first letters of compound words. It makes it easier visually and for screen readers. (#DisabilityStories not #disabilitystories.) If you tweet a photo, describe it. That’s the hardest one for me — finding the space! I believe this from F18 is an interesting solution.