The design newsletter for people on a mission

Bonjour everybody and Happy New Year!

To quote Jacques Brel, a Belgian singer who's worth (re)discovering: "I wish you endless dreams and the furious will to make some of them true. I wish you to love what's to love and forget what's to forget. I wish you to respect the differences in others, because their merit and worth are often left to discover. Most of all I wish you to be you, proud to be so and happy."

As we ease back into work, I wanted to keep this edition soft. If you're a regular reader, you'll find the tips to be less technical than usual. But accessibility and inclusion is not only code and design. Sometimes a small change in our habits and processes can also go a long way.

Let me know if you find those tips useful, whether they're easy to put in place, or if you've encountered any issues.

Quick wins

Share your materials before meetings

Disability can be invisible or kept hidden on purpose. So it’s important to make your processes and habits inclusive no matter what. One thing you can try to do is share your materials in advance, at least 24h before a meeting. It’ll give everyone a chance to go through them and equally take part in the meeting. Making this a standard also helps people whose first language isn't English, and people with neurodiversity. Having access to the documents in advance helps us check what we don’t understand and get up to speed.

Offer to moderate comments

If you're coming from a position of privilege, there's a lot you can do to help people from marginalised communities. For example, you can offer to moderate online comments for them. It helps them stop choosing between self-censorship and putting themselves at risk. You can also report hateful comments and retweet the voices of people you rarely hear from. It's free, fast and it can make a huge difference without pulling the cover to yourself. Thanks to @seyiakiwowo for all her tips on Digital Self Defence.

Beat the curse of knowledge

The more I learn about accessibility, the more I see how much more there is to learn. It's almost like feeling like I don't know anything. So I'm always surprised when I raise an issue with someone and realise they weren’t aware of it. The road ahead is still so long, I forgot that I did make progress on the way. It’s called the curse of knowledge. So don’t underestimate what you’ve learnt about accessibility and inclusion. Talk about it. And if you lack the confidence, raise questions rather than claim facts. Don't be afraid to be wrong, it’ll start the conversation and give you a chance to nuance what you’ve gathered so far.

To go further

How to support your disabled colleagues

Recruiting and including disabled staff is not as daunting, costly or time-consuming as employers think it is. Sometimes, a simple change of attitude can go a long way. Social media officer Holly, a blind woman from Yorkshire, gives you plenty of tips to support disabled colleagues, before and after they got the job.

Keeping survivors safe during UX research

Chayn's website is known for thoughtful features, such as an emergency "Leave this site" button. I think I told you about this button in a previous edition. But it’s not the only good UX example they have. UX researcher Jenny explains her trauma-informed principle of safety when interviewing survivors. Her article is clear and mindful. It also gives excellent advice for anyone planning to conduct similar research with a sensitive audience.

Empathy prompts

Eric is an inclusive design advocate who created the Empathy Prompts. He suggests exercises to make you experience an impairment, a disability, or even just slow internet. The project targets both designers and people who aren't involved in product development. The point is to help people understand what it's like to use the Internet with barriers. You can try the Empathy Prompts on your own or share them with your colleagues and ask them how it went. It shouldn’t replace real user testing but it’s a good exercise anyway.

Fancy a chat?

I'm learning new things all the time about making my work accessible and ethical, so if you have a similar approach or are working in this space, please do connect on LinkedIn or Twitter. I'm aware of the limitations of my perspective and warmly welcome any suggestions for improvement.

If you need help with one of your projects, feel free to email me.