Interview with Julianna Rowsell

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?

I have ADHD and an autoimmune disorder, basically living with chronic pain and anemia, which can leave me fatigued as a base state of being.

Depending on those conditions and their level of flare-up, the time and the environment will impact my ability to participate fully and to learn. If I attend a full-day in-person conference that doesn’t have adequate breaks, that doesn’t allow us to get up and move around, I will end up in physical pain. That means a lot of what you say at that point I won’t hear or process. This kind of defeats the purpose of attending the event in the first place.

It’s easier for me to retain information in the morning than in the afternoon. Otherwise, I have to make sure that I have adequate medication because the pain has a significant impact on ADHD. And then, I will start to fidget around, bounce my feet, move my hands, chew my tongue, anything to bring my brain into a place where it can focus and still retain information.

In a virtual event, I need to be allowed to turn off my camera, because if I’m in pain, I don’t want to attract attention. In order to actually retain information, I might sketch and doodle, I might need to get up and walk around, stretch at my desk, etc. And so, the speed at which someone presents the environment in which we’re in, the ability to have breaks and pauses between information, and not go too fast will enable me to get more value out of the event.

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?

Some of the things that have really impacted my ability to understand content in presentations include:

• expectations not clearly set
• how the session is delivered
• whether technical assistance is available (ex. turning on live captions)
• spotlighting the speaker or sign language interpreter
• having to handle a lot of troubleshooting

A lack of mindfulness in the delivery of the session might mean that I have to advocate for myself during a session because the speaker doesn’t have the proper features set up for inclusion.

Another thing that really stands out for me is the ability to reduce some of the overstimulation by accessing a quiet place to decompress, detox, clear my mind and just be silent for a while, so I can recharge, and then get the most out of the event. As a trainer, if you don’t know what accommodations are needed, how can you take stock of who’s in the room, or if they even understand or follow you?

One of the worst things we speakers can do to shut people down and to take away their curiosity is to make someone feel like their question was silly, or 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.

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?

I think connecting tangible items when they tell stories and amplify lived experience and approach things with care are real opportunities to help people develop new mental models. They become enablers for changing our mindsets. Taking the time to connect with how people learn. Is it learning by doing? By listening? By changing people’s perspectives?

Speakers who help us question something to unpack it, unlearn it, and relearn a new way of being, thinking, acting, doing or way of working light a spark in me. It’s thought-provoking and engaging and makes us question what our own status quo or worldview is. Those are the places where I get the most joy. When a trainer can meet someone where they are at and move at the speed of their need and also their trust. It can completely alter the directionality of that relationship.

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?

The modality, medium, or environment in which speakers deliver their content should be multi-modal, to meet different sensory, physical and cognitive needs. Speakers should share their slides ahead of time and visually describe them. They should also plan for captions and sign language interpreters, enabling people to learn in the way that they are most comfortable in, sharing in the way that they are best going to understand and find their way through the material. They can use plain language to help us navigate through some of the ambiguity, making sure that the material is legible, concise, and actionable. They should adapt their communication style to meet the needs of the people in the room, virtually or otherwise.

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.?

Work on making the unconscious more conscious. Pause and check your own unconscious biases related to how other people navigate the world. Are you giving everyone a positive environment and the right tools, so more people can be brought along, participate more fully, contribute more, share more, and challenge you to expand your own worldviews?

Accessibility is a design opportunity. It comes with constants and constraints, but you have the power to raise or lower barriers for people. You can’t possibly empathize with all situations, contexts and users. But what you can do is aim to understand the audience’s needs, constraints, and considerations. Aim to unlearn, understand, then change.

Break the cycles of exclusion.