Interview with Angela Young

QUESTION 01 Can you tell us a bit about yourself, and how your disability might impact your experience, as someone who attends live in-person and virtual events?

Hi! I’m Angela. I am Deaf, Neurodivergent, and have a Craniofacial Abnormality. I’m also a Breast Cancer survivor, and cancer survivors are an underrepresented group in the Invisible Disability (ID) community. In addition to a 17-year career in K-12 and Higher Education, my advocacy work has evolved over the past thirteen years to encompass the LGBTQ+ community, the Deaf/HOH community, and the ID community. I infuse accessibility and inclusion into everything I do both personally and professionally at Siteimprove.

Interactions I have at conferences depend on auditory scenarios. For example, with virtual events, the sound quality of participants’ microphones or the background noise within their own environments hinders communication. At in-person conferences, a large hall where sound echoes or lots of background noise can impede my efforts to understand presenters. Mask-wearing exacerbated these issues because I can’t read lips, which is my primary way of confirming to myself that what I hear and what the person is actually saying are matching up. As a result, needing to rely 100% on the auditory feedback I’m getting can be exhausting for my brain to process and I often end the day with headaches.

QUESTION 02 Thinking back on some of your experiences attending in-person or virtual events, what are some of the worst things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts can do to ruin your experience as an attendee?

Conference topics should spark my curiosity and inspire me to a call to action, and if I don’t feel invested in the concepts being presented, I’m going to tune out and give my brain an auditory break. Ensuring that microphones, speakers, and audio equipment is clear and functional is essential to my ability to enjoy a conference. 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.

Because I have single-sided deafness, 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.

QUESTION 03 Can you share some of the great things speakers, trainers, and other communication experts sometimes do that make a positive impact on your ability to fully enjoy your in-person or virtual event experiences?

Some of my most memorable experiences at conferences come from the clarity in which I could access the content. This means ensuring the usage of live captions, a close-up view of the presenter on a large screen, and a sound system that ensures the words are coming across crisp and clear. I feel most engaged when I don’t have to process and “decode” what is being said to me, especially if I’m asking a question to the speaker specifically and engaging in dialogue during a panel or a Q&A.

QUESTION 04 If you had one piece of advice to give speakers, trainers, and other communication experts, so their content became more inclusive of people who have disabilities, what would it be?

Please don’t assume that just because you can’t see my disability, that I don’t have one (or several!). Please take us seriously when we ask for accommodations. Remember that it’s not enough to invite people with disabilities to a conference. You also need to ensure that you have a plan in place so that getting to the conference, navigating the sessions, and engaging with the content is as accessible to ALL humans as possible.

Also, if someone who is Deaf/HOH asks you to repeat yourself, please don’t over-enunciate and shout. We want to be treated like “regular” human beings – just kindly repeat yourself with patience and a smile!

QUESTION 05 Thank you for sharing some of your insights with us today. As we wrap up our conversation, is there anything that you’d like to add, such as another thought, another piece of advice, another perspective, etc.?

I’d like to challenge you to flip your mindset on people with disabilities. The only reason we have disabilities is because society has constructed our interactions with the world to highlight the ways we are different, and the ways we engage with the world uniquely. Accessibility is essential for some, but it is useful for everyone. When we create a more accessible world, we are minimizing the ways everyone experiences disabilities.