Start by thinking about accessible design
Think about the different elements that make your activity accessible to the people with disability you want to engage. By thinking critically, planning early, and being creative about how you engage people with disability, the contributions you receive will help everyone make better processes, products, services, and policies.
Depending on how you run them, activities and projects can be a positive or stressful experience for people with disability. As you design your activities, you should:
- Design accessibly by default, as you may not know if or when people with disability are interested in or already participating in your engagement activities.
- Identify any assumptions you make about people’s ability.
- Consider the elements of your activity that impact accessibility.
- Think creatively to address, reduce, or minimise the barriers to participation for different people.
Relevant pages
Towards inclusive practice (Inclusion Australia)
Testing for accessibility (Gov.UK Service Manual)
Deaftopia: Imagining a perfect world (SBS: Our Deaf Ways)
Define your activity’s purpose
Be clear about the purpose of your activity. You should:
- Prioritise accessibility throughout.
- Consider the project aim, products, and output.
- Identify how the activity supports your aim.
- Identify specific questions that you need this activity to answer.
- Identify and attract a diverse group of people to participate.
- Be flexible to include what you learn from people with disability.
Consider the timing and duration
Consider when your activity will happen and how long it will take. You should:
- Identify convenient times for participants. Consider travel times, time zones, or other obligations that may impact people’s ability to participate.
- Choose a duration that suits the people with disability who are participating. The length of the activity may impact who is interested, who is available, and whether there is enough time for people to contribute what you need.
- Give yourself enough time to plan for and organise accessibility needs.
Relevant pages
Design: Consider time and costs
Plan: Meet people’s accessibility needs
Plan: Plan accessible in-person activities
Example
You want to interview primary and secondary school teachers with disability at your local school. You usually work from 9am to 5pm on weekdays, but you know the teachers are at school from 8am to 4pm. You also know that if you schedule interviews during school hours, participants may not be able to contribute. You decide to communicate with teachers individually, giving them options for interview times during their break times, at lunch time, and after school. There also happens to be a pupil-free day coming up, so you offer interviews on that day, too.
You assure the teachers that you will take no longer than 30 minutes unless they would like their interview to go for longer.
You give all interested teachers the questions in advance. This way they know what to expect and can prepare their answers, which also helps you stay on time. For those who are interested but cannot make the time, you invite them to respond through audio or text message.
Consider the location
Consider how participants will contribute to your activity or project. This could be at different locations at different times.
In-person (face-to-face)
In-person activities are those where you and your participants meet in one location. Consider the whole-of-journey experience of a participant attending your activity. This includes getting to and leaving the location.
Remote
Remote activities may be online, a phone call, through the mail, or via a chat platform.
When conducting an online or unfacilitated activity, consider which medium/media or platform/s will be most convenient for participants and create the highest quality experience.
Hybrid
Hybrid activities involve some people participating in-person and others participating remotely at the same time.
Plan ahead to support an accessible and positive experience for participants in both locations. You may need more time to organise project team members, accessible materials in multiple formats, different technologies, and more to best support participants in both locations.
Example
You are creating an advisory group of people who live in rural and remote areas. Other advisory groups in the city meet in-person once a month, and this is the company norm. However, a team member points out that if travel is difficult and/or expensive, it may prevent people from participating.
In the advertisement for the advisory group, you provide hybrid options for meetings. You receive feedback that this approach allowed someone with disability and caring responsibilities to attend from home.
Relevant pages
Design: Consider time and costs
Plan: Plan accessible in-person activities
Consider the format
People may prefer some formats for engagement to others. Consider if the format of your engagement will:
- deliver a quality experience for people with disability
- enable you to engage participants as much as you would like
- support the access needs of people with disability.
Engagement formats include:
- interviews
- interactive displays
- project member(s) with disability
- surveys.
Example
You are researching the impact and experience of people with disability who have unpaid parking fines. You would normally conduct user research with focus groups. However, you know that participants may not want to participate in a group activity as they could be embarrassed about their parking fines. Instead, you conduct research using an anonymous survey and one-on-one interviews.
Consider the participation costs
Participating in engagement activities often costs people with disability. You should consider how:
- participants may need to pay to attend an activity
- you could reduce these costs.
Costs may include:
- transport and accommodation
- food and drink
- time off from work or study
- the use of technology, such as smartphones or computers
- the use of the internet or phone
- the effort and energy to attend and participate in the activity
- accessibility support, such as people, animals, tools, and technology.
Relevant pages
Design: Consider time and costs
Plan: Plan accessible in-person activities
Consider the group size
The size of the group can impact how you make your activity a positive experience for people. You should:
- Design your project or activity considering the number of people who can comfortably and safely participate in the given time.
- Consider the people, time, and costs needed to give participants a comfortable, safe, and positive experience.
Some considerations include:
- offering additional accommodations, such as audio description, captioning, translators, or interpreters
- how long the activity will take
- how many team members you need
- how you include disability specialists
- if and/or how people contribute
- noise levels
- the space to move
- the air quality
- the number of rooms needed (including a low-sensory space).
Relevant pages
Context: Address access barriers
Design: Consider time and costs
Design: Partner with disability specialists
Plan: Meet people’s accessibility needs
Example
You are running a series of collaborative workshops engaging 15 people. You find out that there is a participant who prefers to share in smaller groups, and another who is sensitive to many people speaking at once. You re-design the activities so that participants are in groups of two to five people.