With novel innovations and new tools often capturing organizational attention, accessibility is unfortunately often overlooked or perceived as boring or hard. This should be seen, then, as a key problem to be solved: how might we make accessibility content simple and engaging? How can we make it so sticky that people will be keen to learn more?
When we asked ourselves this question as a team venturing into accessibility, the answer we came up with was empathy — helping teams and other stakeholders understand and relate to the people that will benefit from greater accessibility.
To help build empathy, we decided to create videos in which people would share stories about their experiences with technology and how they went about trying to adapt to certain challenges.
Storytelling is key to building empathy and understanding on the subject of accessibility. Accessibility Talks as a resource is invaluable in this regard. Having bite-sized and easily digestible nuggets that can be retold to clients, colleagues and stakeholders gives us the leverage we need in our work to shape and build a more accessible world for everyone.
Storytelling is key to building empathy and understanding on the subject of accessibility. Accessibility Talks as a resource is invaluable in this regard. Having bite-sized and easily digestible nuggets that can be retold to clients, colleagues and stakeholders gives us the leverage we need in our work to shape and build a more accessible world for everyone.
Like a TV series, we ran a pilot. The feedback was so overwhelmingly positive that we then shot more videos. Thoughtworkers volunteered to share their stories to help us raise empathy and awareness. It was an open project, where everyone in the organization could contribute their own stories and knowledge by sharing a video.
We called the series Accessibility Talks. It became a mix of interviews with Thoughtworkers with disabilities and demos on how to fix accessibility issues and case studies.
Through the project, we were able to raise awareness of digital accessibility challenges, and provide actionable bits of knowledge on techniques and strategies for removing these barriers in a simple and engaging way.
I really like this project. Accessibility Talks presented by colleagues from different countries not only broadened my perspective on accessibility domain quickly, but also made me feel the power of community. Through this opportunity, I got to know speakers from diverse backgrounds who are all concerned about accessibility. The talks provided a platform for me to connect with them and discuss more topics. This is something that purely conceptual articles cannot achieve.
The idea for Accessibility Talks first appeared in November 2021. By June 2022 we had 10 videos available; by the end of 2022 we made 20 videos available. At the time of writing, just over one year since launch, the videos have been watched more than 1,200 times. The talks have become very popular; in some Thoughtworks countries they have been included in the onboarding process for new colleagues.
Looking to the future: from building awareness to building capabilities
In Thoughtworks, Accessibility Talks have played a key role in increasing awareness on accessibility and inclusion. It has helped to strengthen and extend our capabilities in removing digital barriers.
We aren’t finished yet; we want to continue to build our accessibility capability. We have recently curated Accessibility Talks videos into learning paths dedicated to all practitioners in Thoughtworks, whether they’re developers, product managers, designers, business analysts or quality analysts. Later this year, we will release externally an Accessibility Playbook we’ve been using internally; this will ensure our knowledge can help organizations far beyond Thoughtworks to make accessibility central to how they think about technology.
An excerpt of Accessibility talks is available as part of the recording of a talk given by Sara Michelazzo at YConf Europe 2022.
