What’s next for our Accessibility Working Group
Since we think and plan in ‘financial years’ at Auto Trader, our ‘years’ run from April to April and with the beginning of March upon us, it was time for our Accessibility Working Group (AWG) at Auto Trader to get together for a day of reflection on the past year. We are a small team of seven, composed of product designers, content designers, researchers and one superhero developer.
In the past year, we’ve designed and ran our Introduction to Accessibility Workshop, participated in school events, talked internally and externally, and a whole lot more! It was time to catch up and think about what was working and what we can achieve next.
Coffee, tea and a chat
The day started with a hot drink to warm up the conversation and the room; somehow the air conditioning was stuck on and we were all freezing! While our group works on projects outside of our AWG, it’s really rare for us to have uninterrupted time as a full group together. It was fantastic to have the whole day to focus on what we wanted to accomplish as a working group, rather than a rushed 30-minute meeting mid-week where you have to do a lot of context switching.
Reflections
So, after the caffeine started flowing, we ran a reflection of the past year. It wasn’t a retrospective per se, but we did follow a classic retrospective outline.
We thought about:
- Things that went well
- Things that could have gone better
- What we’re most proud of
- What we would like to do more of
It was my first time thinking about something I’m most proud of in a retro, but I thought it was a really fantastic way to reflect and take a moment to think of the impact we’re making. I am pretty sure every person on the team put something different for what they’re proud of, and it made us all take a step back and realise all we had accomplished in the past year. Our AWG lead, Natalie Crook sent us out an email a few days before to let us know she was going to ask this question, and I think having a bit of lead time for reflection really helped!
We were taking notes the whole time, mostly about actions and talking points for later in the day. We especially got action oriented when we talked about what we would like to do more of, which was exciting because we knew Nat had planned time for us to talk about future goals.
Events for the next year
In the last year, we helped to plan activities for both Purple Tuesday and Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). After the ‘retro, we started thinking about events for the next year. As a group, we set a goal to run at least four events in 2023–2024.
We spent some time individually thinking about and researching:
- Events we could run
- Ideas for those events (or general ideas)
We had a big brain dump of the events we found and different ideas we had on what activities we could do on the day. Next up was dot voting! Everyone got three ‘dots’ to vote on the events they felt like we should celebrate and raise awareness of with our colleagues. This was a really hard choice, because of course each event deserves awareness and appreciation, but we’re only a small group who can do so much.
The days or weeks with the most ‘dots’ were:
- Global Accessibility Awareness Day (19 May)
- Dyslexia Day (08 October) and Dyspraxia Week (09–15 October)
- Purple Tuesday (01 November)
- Global Usability Day (09 November)
While we did try to space the events throughout the year, we were also conscious that a lot of the business takes holiday or works from home during December, July and August, so we tried to be strategic in our planning. It’s also worth mentioning that this isn’t an exhaustive list of everything we will contribute to. We very much look forward to collaborating with our colleagues in the Disability and Neurodiversity Network at Auto Trader!
Later in the session we decided who would ‘own’ each event. While we say ‘own’, we know that as a team, everyone will likely contribute to the days and events if they have capacity, but it was a good opportunity for individuals to take ownership of an event to help with the planning of logistics. We did this by simply putting our initials next to the day or week we were most interested in, or had ideas of what we could do. Luckily, it was a pretty even spread and we got two people for each event.
Lunch
After two sessions where we really had our thinking caps on, it was time to get out for a bit of fresh air and walk over to our local cafe for lunch. The break was welcomed and it was great to catch up outside of the office.
Educational Outreach
Back at the office after a great lunch, it was time to focus on educational outreach. Last year on GAAD, we had an opportunity to visit Manchester Academy where we ran our Introduction to Accessibility workshop for a group of students. We all really enjoyed the day and school visits are something that popped up a lot in our ‘what went well’ and ‘what we’d like to do more of’ sections.
We got the post-its back out and with school visits and events in mind thought of:
- Ideas of activities
- Connections we have
- Commitments we have made and want to make
There wasn’t a lot more to do in this section, as we compiled the information and plan to collaborate with the new Social Mobility Network that just launched at Auto Trader. As we know getting into schools and working with young people is something we enjoy, we may also look for more opportunities on our event days.
Accessibility Champions
As I mentioned, we are just a small group of facilitators in a business of over one thousand people! While we’re really proud of the work we do, we have so many ideas of what else we want to achieve! Off the back of our workshops and people in the business taking an interest in accessibility, we have started to think how we can expand our group and what role other people can take to get more involved.
We had a lot of ideas and discussion about this and the best way forward, but we’re not quite ready to share it out yet. Watch this space!
Planning
Right, so we’ve had loads of reflection, inspiration and constructive chats throughout the day- what’s next? Well.. tackling our actions list. It had gotten pretty hefty by the time the afternoon rolled around.
To not let the work fall on just one person and to make sure everyone could get involved in what they were actually interested in, we had another round of dot voting. Each person voted for two to three things they wanted to ‘own’. After splitting it all up as a group, it became a much more manageable to-do list filled with small actions and larger commitments.
Wrap up
As the clock hit four, our time together had come to an end. But rather than tired faces from the day, I think we all left feeling energised and ready for the year ahead. While none of us claim to be experts, we are all passionate about accessibility and excited about the changes we will make for our colleagues, communities and customers this year.
Do you have any suggestions on things we might have missed? Questions about our plans? Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn!
