The event I attended is an online event on web accessibility called the Inclusive Design 24 conference. It was the 5th annual ID24, which is a 24-hour live stream international event where different topics were discussed from October 10th to October 11th. I did not watch the full 24 hours, but I was able to catch some of the talks and have gone back to watch more of it since, as they were streamed and saved on YouTube. This seemed like an important event to partake in, as it is relevant to a few of my projects this semester (including my final paper for this class) as well as is a good event for everyone in the information profession to view as it provides new ideas and thoughts on the state of web accessibility. It is also a unique event because the 24 hours of streaming allows it to include numerous international voices which can often not be included in events or conferences that require physical attendance, especially for the disability community. This allows every type of person to participate in the event through presenting or watching the hours of content, without being required to travel. Additionally, because this is the 5th year of this event, it operates relatively fluidly, and the people involved seem excited by the conversation and size of the event. Everyone presenting was very happy to be representing an organization or be an expert in the field to share their insights and ideas on the issues.
What they are trying to do is not limit creativity of web design but encourage people to take into consideration a whole bunch of different disabilities, so the internet feels like a place of inclusion and equality, and helps people participating in the medium instead of discouraging them. This event also coincided nicely with our readings also discussed on October 10th on user centered design/ design justice, showing how an inclusive thought process can be implemented in the real-world practice of creation. Making everything high contrast (though high contrast is not the same for everyone) and sites easy to click is beneficial for not only low vision users, but to those users on the website outside in the sunlight. Taking into account who has access, and the value of making things accessible in a sensory way but also where connection is limited. The group is trying to connect all people, whatever circumstance, every way they can for the future.
While the event itself seemed low budget with some questionable connection and presentations at times, and I am not sure most people would actually commit to watching 24 hours of this all at once, but it was a very global event, and is an attempt to connect and take into consideration numerous types of technology consumers. There were different college groups who watched at various times, and a decent amount of twitter engagement. The hashtag #ID24, was used throughout the event, and the tweets were positive, and there is the ability to communicate with what the speakers were talking about.
The most important lesson I think I took from the event is that you are not creating an experience (even though the word user experience implies exactly that) your creating an environment for people to experience. Whether it is entirely usable at face value to the user, or if they can easily adapt and add to it (i.e. screen readers, different methods of selecting content, inverted colors or customized high contrast settings) to make it personalized and accessible, the structure of what your creating is the environment. In terms of accessibility, they also emphasized that the basics are what gets overlooked a lot of times in web design and that is what leaves people behind. Web designers often skip over the basic structure of a website, like the html, which is really where most of the accessible adaptations take place, because the websites personal style does not matter as much as the content if some sort of adapter is going to alter the style anyway.
The underlying theme is that people care about accessibility, but it is a big undertaking for people that do not know how to go about implementing components into their design. People know they are excluding people, but it is hard to start the process of designing better. They discussed a lot of different topics, from high contrast mode, accessible online payments, WordPress, the list goes on and on within the 24 hours of content.
When thinking about the readings this semester, it goes back to design justice. They are very good at pointing out what does not work and why a lot of the websites out there are poorly designed for accessibility. Additionally, there is not one right solution for everyone, but there are things that can make it better for everyone. The more control the user in some of the design choices, like contrast and color, that might be a better solution then designing one website to fit everyone’s needs from the moment they type in the URL.
This event gives a lot of voices of the disabled design community a larger platform of which to speak. As Costanza-Chock writes,
The key lessons include: involving members of the community that is most directly affected by the issue that you are focusing on is crucial, both because it’s ethical, and also because the tacit and experiential knowledge of community members is sure to produce ideas, approaches and innovations that a non-member of the community would be very unlikely to come up with. It is also possible to create formal community accountability mechanisms in design processes (Costanza-Chock 9).
There is a lot still to be done in creating a web that is designed with all people in mind, hence this event has been occurring for the past 5 years, and likely as computer technology changes there will always be more things to discuss when it comes to designing content for inclusivity. It seems likely this event will continue for years to come bringing about new thoughts, ideas and innovations in web accessibility.
Bibliography
Costanza-Chock, Sasha. Design Justice: Towards an Intersectional Feminist Framework for Design Theory and Practice. pp 1-14.