The Inclusive Speaker
May 18th, 2023 Launch!

Strategic Inclusive Speaking Template

The book also covers a seven-step process to building a strategic inclusive speaking plan that it will help you turn your own presentations, keynotes, and workshops into ones that intentionally account for various expectations and needs for audience members who are at risk of exclusion based on disability or other circumstances.

Download the Inclusive Speaking template  ➤

The ones who fade out

Throughout the book, the following folks are walking us through this journey down the path of the “inclusive speaker”. Through the chapters, you’ll get a chance to meet each one and learn more about their perspectives and their challenges.

As a complement to the book, follow these links to find out more about some of their frustrations and some of the things that make them happy when attending live, in-person, or virtual presentations.

Izumi

Nick

Khaleem

Lizzy

Uma

Sanjay

Iliana

Vivian

Learn more about the Inclusive Speaker personas  ➤

Miriam Nabinger (appears in Chapter 5 – interview quote 01)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include speakers who phrase everything with “you must” and “you need to” bring out a sense of urgency which causes my anxiety to trigger thinking that I’m already way behind. When speakers put you on the spot and ask you a question, but your answer is laughed about or ridiculed. This is often a validator not to go to the conference again and gives me an overall bad feeling.”

Julianna Roswell (appears in Chapter 6 – interview quote 02)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include speakers who shut people down and take away their curiosity by making them feel like their question was silly, or those who make up an answer when they don’t have one. Acknowledge your own limits as needed. Promise to get back to them after having had a chance to do research, rather than answer with confidence with something that may be false and may cause harm.”

Albert Kim (appears in Chapter 7 – interview quote 03)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include speakers who are dismissive, show stigma or unconscious negative biases towards mental health, and ruin my experience with their poor and inappropriate ableist language. Another example would be speakers who rely on musterbation techniques to create a false sense of urgency and undue pressure in their presentations for dramatic effects. Constantly hearing them say things like ‘you must do this…,’ and ‘you have to do that…,’ can trigger my OCD and anxiety, as I then feel forced into something that I don’t necessarily want to do.”

Amy Carney (appears in Chapter 8 – interview quote 04)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include slides and screen shares that are challenging for me to read or follow along. More so in-person when the wall is further away, and the lighting is not optimal for me. Low colour contrast, small font size, and overcrowded content have been the biggest hindrances. My vision often causes me to be a slower reader, so even if I can see the slide, I miss the speaker’s elaboration due my slower reading.”

Charlie Turrell (appears in Chapter 9 – interview quote 05)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include poorly planned hybrid sessions, especially if there is a delay when online attendees are speaking. Trying to address people in the room and online at the same time when answering questions can be difficult as I don’t know where to focus. Having no long breaks for me to move around will cause my energy levels to deplete quickly as I become fidgety and irritable.”

Shawn Thompson (appears in Chapter 10 – interview quote 06)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include speakers who fail to provide a summary of their presentation prior to the session or don’t stick to the one they provided. Without a reliable summary, it’s harder for me to prepare my notes, and it will impact what I manage to remember. I never really know what part of the presentation I’ll retain due to my struggles with notetaking. All I can do is hope that I remember the important details.”

Gareth Ford Williams (appears in Chapter 11 – interview quote 07)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include reading from slides. Densely packed text on slides with someone reading from them just turns me off, and I struggle to concentrate. I have a terrible short-term memory, so I need things that are going to help me remember what is being said. I love slides that either have a quotable key phrase, an associated image, or simple graphic that underlines the point being made by the speaker. If it’s just a repeated narrative I may as well just get a copy of the script and read it at my leisure.”

Jason Boychuk (appears in Chapter 12 – interview quote 08)

“Some of the worst things include when speakers are not speaking clearly, are speaking under their voice, or don’t enunciate properly. I like to have captions turned on for pretty much everything, so this is particularly problematic when presentations are not supported with live transcripts or similar services. Lack of structure in the presentation can also be triggering in its own way. Not clearly communicating the ideas, having text-heavy PowerPoint presentation decks… Too much text on a slide draws my attention away from the speaker. It can be a lot to ask, balancing a text-heavy slide with synchronized captions appearing on top of it on a screen.”

Patrick Sturdivant (appears in Chapter 13 – interview quote 09)

“Some of the worst things presenters can do to affect my experience attending their session includes presuming that I can see their slide deck, visuals, or demonstrations, or using words such as “here”, “this”, or “that”. Other things include, but are not limited to, playing a video as a part of their presentation that is not described (with music only), not be prepared for a participant who is blind, conducting activities that I can’t participate in without prior preparation, and speaking with an accent that is difficult to understand or comprehend.”

Samantha Evans (appears in Chapter 14 – interview quote 10)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include high-speed graphics, animations, and flashing elements used as part of event designs that can make me nauseous or feel like I’m terribly off balance. In digital events, not being able to turn off moving video, gifs, or animated jpgs is enough to make me have to walk away or turn off the monitor. Scrolling transcripts aren’t my friend either, and I’m not great with scrolling teleprompters at the podium either.”

Meryl K. Evans (appears in Chapter 15 – interview quote 11)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include speakers who walk past me while talking. Or if they don’t walk past me, they walk back and forth, sideways, or turn their heads sideways to look to the side audience. Then, I miss more of what they say. Speakers who mumble or talk fast lose me. I’ll do what I can to leave the room quietly and politely. This is why I rarely attend conferences and services. My time is better spent elsewhere.”

Léonie Watson (appears in Chapter 16 – interview quote 12)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include speakers who say something like “as you can see on my slide.” I recognize this is not an easy habit to break, but it’s also not an easy problem to solve. I give a lot of talks that include code examples on the slides, and although I try to mention that there is a code example on the screen, it’s rarely possible to recite it verbatim, so there is still an element of content that is not conveyed to anyone else who cannot see it.”

Jamie Knight (and Lion) (appears in Chapter 17 – interview quote 13)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include making assumptions during events. The first assumption is that I can speak at a moment’s notice. I can always communicate in one form or another, but I am semi-speaking and an unexpected demand to speak can be very tricky. The second assumption is that I can move. I have very limited mobility and need a harness to sit upright. For that reason, a 10-minute ‘break’ often means sitting alone for 10 minutes as that’s not enough time to unstrap, transfer, and move anywhere. The third assumption is about focus. I work best with 30-40 mins of flowy attention. Content that doesn’t flow very well is intensely difficult for me to follow.”

Mark Lasser (appears in Chapter 18 – interview quote 14)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include consistent references to things being “over here” and “as you can see” during a slide presentation. It’s tough to get through, and I’m sure there’s some body language that the speaker would notice if they were looking at us on occasion. Other irritants are referring to things by color alone as this not only affects me, but also a significant number of likely colorblind folks in attendance. The combination of these is the worst. For example, “As you can see on this side, the items in green are going well.” This is also true for virtual events, except the speaker may not be aware that some attendees are blind or colorblind.”

Desiree White (appears in Chapter 19 – interview quote 15)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include being called on or asked to respond to something without time to prepare very well because of my anxiety. I need time to formulate an answer and feel confident; I’m not going to make myself look dumb first. It doesn’t matter if you’re not judging me because I am absolutely judging myself.”

Neil Milliken (appears in Chapter 20 – interview quote 16)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include asking the audience to participate by rapidly reading a load of dense text, and submit written responses under time pressure. I’m dyslexic, and walls of text are difficult for me. Firstly, the anxiety of reading something which is often a picture of text during a fixed period of time is significant for people with print disabilities, and to compound that by asking to compose text under time pressure is a sure-fire way to exclude people like me.”

Raghavendra Satish Peri (appears in Chapter 21 – interview quote 17)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include coming up with fancy titles for their talk, but then the content ends up being something else or very generic. It is very disappointing, as I expect added content or alternate perspectives. Also, a lot of times speakers/trainers talk to the sighted community, so they tend to use a lot of visual cues, and I am left wondering about what is being explained.”

David Dauber (appears in Chapter 22 – interview quote 18)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include speakers who ask for volunteers to come on stage and share their experiences. I once raced down the center aisle only to find out there was no way for me to get up onto the stage with my wheelchair. While I still shared my experience, I was simply a voice coming from the darkened front row.”

Dave Brown (appears in Chapter 23 – interview quote 19)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include speakers whose presentations are entirely visual and who pass out handouts with the smallest possible fonts. Most won’t have accessible alternative formats and will give us attitude when pressed about it. It immediately kills their credibility for me, and I immediately stopped listening to what they have to say.”

Angela Young (appears in Chapter 24 – interview quote 20)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include not ensuring that microphones, speakers, and audio equipment are clear and functional. Making announcements over a loudspeaker where I need to fight to understand above the din of conversation means I most likely won’t understand the information at all. The positioning of chairs within a room is important to me, so that I can choose a chair that places the majority of the action directly in front of me or to my left side. Chairs that are too tightly placed together or allow my view to be blocked means that I won’t be able to read the lips of the presenters.”

Lucy Greco (appears in Chapter 25 – interview quote 21)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include presenters who depend on their slides to talk or tend not to speak out about the content of the slides and/or will say things like “do it like this,” but do not describe what “this” is. I have often had to ask speakers to describe the content and/or tell me what they were demonstrating and give me the salient points. I even had someone say to me and the rest of the audience, “we don’t have time, so you can just read my slides with your eyes.” That was offensive as she saw me sitting there with my service dog.”

Myriam Jessier (appears in Chapter 26 – interview quote 22)

“It really, really irks me when I attend an accessibility talk at a conference and it’s CLEAR the speaker does not give a flying f*ck about folks with ADHD. I had one recently that made my brain melt because of the slide format. Slides should not have too much information on them, or I will read them instead of listening to you. Do not use typography that is hard to figure out, or I will spend most of my time doing that. If you drone on without any animation, my brain will wander.”

Kristina England (appears in Chapter 27 – interview quote 23)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include presenters who build animations and movement into an event that I can’t control or am not alerted about. In my case, fast-paced animations or scrolling content I can’t control makes me nauseous and can trigger vertigo (a feeling of falling and not being able to find my balance).”

Nicolas Steenhout (appears in Chapter 28 – interview quote 24)

“Some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin my experience as an attendee include presenters who won’t use a microphone to speak. It makes it incredibly hard for me to hear and/or understand what is said. Similarly, when the presenter doesn’t repeat audience questions when microphones aren’t available for the audience questions, by the time I figured out what the question was, I missed the presenter’s answer!”