Accessibility, accountability, and a new version of Orbits
We’ve released a new version of Orbits optimised for accessibility — here’s why, and what we’ve learnt
We spent the last 18-months on a voyage discovering and uncovering the problem of technology-facilitated gender-based violence. A few weeks ago we released Orbits: a new guide on tech abuse and how we can tackle it through intersectional, survivor-centred, and trauma-informed interventions. The response has been amazing, and we’ve had fantastic feedback from our global community about the guide and how it can be used.
We also received feedback that the design of Orbits was not accessible for many people. The design — which used the space theme we’ve used throughout the project — is beautiful but busy, and we didn’t implement basic accessibility features such as subheadings, which are vital for screen readers. This was a big oversight on our behalf, and we’re sorry. Accessible design is an area of development for the teams at both Chayn and End Cyber Abuse, and deadlines and our eagerness to get Orbits out in the world resulted in us not prioritising this as we should have. Given our commitment to justice and inclusion, and given the topic of the field guide, we could have done much better — and aim to do so in the future.
With the help of our friends at Snook, we’ve now released a plain text version of Orbits which is optimised for accessibility and print. In addition, we’ve made some improvements to the designed version of the guide, and published certain key chapters of the guide separately for those who wish to dive straight into particular sections. As part of our dissemination plan for Orbits we had been planning on publishing those chapters individually in separate instalments over the next few months, along with blog posts that summarise each section, but have decided to expedite this and release them now.
We want to extend a huge thank you to Snook for flagging this issue and for offering their time and support to develop the accessible version. In particular, thank you to Rebecca Rae-Evans, Sarah Fisher, Ananda Maryon, and Julie Watts for their work and support. Snook’s team not only produced the accessible version but have also shared training materials with us on accessible design, which we’ll be using for internal training on this topic. From this process we’ve not only learnt more about accessible design — and how important it is for accessibility checks to be built into the design process — but also how we need to integrate an accessibility lens at the project planning stage. This is key so that sufficient time is allocated to make our work accessible to all and to ensure accessibility is a key consideration in all design throughout the project, not just in the final product. We’re still learning in this area and welcome all feedback on how we can continue to improve access to Orbits, and Chayn and End Cyber Abuse’s work in general.
Download Orbits at c.chayn.co/orbits
