Running Accessible Meetings and Events
A primer to make the lives of participants with disabilities better.
As someone in technology with a long-standing mobility problem, I have been to a LOT of meetings. Looking just from the perspective of access, most of them have been OK, some have been really good, but some have been embarrassingly difficult and awkward to downright inaccessible.
Non-Starters
I’ll start with a couple of items that you should never, ever do.
No meetings / gatherings on grass UNLESS there is an accessible path that reaches all areas
This is a pet peeve of mine, because I have personally experienced it so many times. I have heard every excuse in the book on this one, usually it is some variation of “but we have such a large group, there is no where else we can do this?” In that case, my response is “it appears to be a gathering that you don’t expect people with disabilities to attend?” Oh, it’s a mandatory meeting you say? My response to that is “You must think your meeting is so important that you are forcing your attendees with disabilities to risk injury to attend.” But you don’t have any people with disabilities attending? (that is a different problem). People with disabilities don’t distinguish between temporary and…
