Quick Actions
- Ask participants for their access needs prior to your session(s).
- Plan for extra time to decide on access agreements with the group.
- Work collaboratively with the group to find solutions that meet everyone’s needs. This provides an opportunity for participants with opposing needs to discuss the conflict and come up with creative solutions together. For example, in an online meeting, participants who rely on lip-reading may need to see the other participants when they are speaking, but it's possible that not everyone has a camera or is able to have their video on. In this case, the group might decide to pause after someone without a video has spoken to ensure that everyone is following the conversation.
- Be open and honest about conflicting needs to support the group in supporting each other and coming to agreement.
- At the beginning of each session, confirm the access agreements and adjust them as needed.
- Give people more than one way to participate (talking, writing, visuals, etc.)
More Information
- When Access Needs Collide: An Interactive Discussion on Navigating Conflicting Access Needs in the Classroom is about what to do when two access needs do not fit neatly together. Accessibility is not one-size-fits-all, so facilitators need to think carefully, test options, and look for solutions that support everyone involved.
- Community-Led Co-design Kit treats access needs as part of the whole co-design process. It encourages teams to discuss access needs early, build them into the project plan, set terms of engagement, and keep those agreements in a shared living document that can be updated as the project changes. It also emphasizes flexibility, sustainable pacing, decision-making, and conflict handling so people can participate in ways that work for them.
Related Actions
- Check and improve accessibility
- Make online meetings accessible
- Make hybrid meetings accessible
- Choose accessible meeting spaces
- Be flexible with meeting times and timelines
- Host onboarding meetings before committee work begins