Your choice of venue, format and event design will be unintentionally excluding some people
If you haven’t met me before you might not know that I am pretty short. It’s OK, I made my peace with it a long time ago. But I do know that I’m short enough that it surprises people when they first meet me in person.
My lack of stature is rarely a problem as long as there is someone around who can get things off high shelves for me. Occasionally though I find myself in a space that was clearly not built with people like me in mind. For example, this week I was at a conference and due to a steeply ramped lecture theatre and a raised barrier between rows I could only see the speaker if I leaned forwards and sat up very straight.
At the same event I also got talking to someone who was quite introverted, had come alone and was finding it all a bit too much. Both of these experiences got me thinking about who we might be excluding from our gatherings.
We assume people are the same as us
I’m not suggesting this happens on purpose. I don’t for one minute think the lecture theatre designer had some kind of vendetta against short people. But it often happens when we assume other people are the same as us – that they have the same physical or emotional experience, or the same access to resources, or the same level of interest or knowledge.
Often when we think about ‘accessibility’ we don’t think much beyond disabled toilets or dietary preferences. But every decision about the location and format of an event will either implicitly or explicitly exclude certain people.
Are you silently sending the message that certain people don’t belong?
For example, researchers often want to hold engagement events on campus. I get it – the room is probably free to use, there will be reliable Wi-Fi and it just seems easier. But easier for who exactly? As I often say, for a lot of people, the university campus might as well be the moon. It is somewhere other, somewhere that is not meant for them.
There are all kinds of other subtleties that include or exclude. Who speaks and for how long? Do the speakers use language or visuals or cultural references that everyone can understand? Do quieter people have a way to contribute? Are the breaks long enough? These might seem like trivial things, but they are the micro-signals that tell people whether or not they belong.
So next time you are thinking about inclusion why not flip it and think instead about who you might be unintentionally excluding?
Photo by Joakim Honkasalo on Unsplash
