Interview with Kristina England

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’m a 40-year-old ADHDer with Crohn’s Disease, Thyroid Disease, and a currently undiagnosed inner ear condition that causes vertigo and tinnitus. With both my chronic illnesses, not having the ability to step away at any time can pose a huge challenge – virtual events have made stepping away much easier for me. From a presentation and meeting platform standpoint, any animations or movement that I can’t control and am not warned about can be a distraction as an ADHDer and can trigger my vertigo.

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?

One of the worst things presenters can do in my case is build animations and movement into an event that I can’t control or am not alerted about. It’s extremely important to consider motion for the epilepsy and vestibular disorder community as motion can quite literally make us sick, whether triggering a seizure for one person or a multi-day migraine for another person. 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).

For example, I attended a virtual conference a little over a year ago where I couldn’t hide the auto-scrolling transcript. It was both distracting and made me nauseous to the point I had to lower the screen on my laptop and just listen. Also, because I need to go off-screen due to either vertigo or chronic fatigue, I get incredibly frustrated with presenters that require attendees to have their video on for virtual events – turning off your video should not be an indicator that you aren’t listening or aren’t present.

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?

At a recent virtual conference, a presenter informed everyone of an animation they needed to show as part of their reduced motion discussion so that anyone with epilepsy or a vestibular disorder could shut off their monitor or lower their laptop screen. Also, visual descriptions are huge for me. Even if there are no animations, depending on how I’m feeling, I sometimes just need to listen rather than stare at a screen.

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?

Always plan for attendees that can’t participate in the visual portions of your presentation – practice describing screenshots, product demos, etc. Also always consider when and how you deliver animations – how fast and jarring is the animation? Is there a lot of flashing content? What does the movement convey and why are you using it as part of your presentation? If the movement is critical to the presentation, provide trigger warnings.

Record yourself practicing visual descriptions and trigger warnings, and if you feel comfortable doing so, share those practice sessions on Twitter for feedback by the blind, deafblind, neurodivergent, and epilepsy and vestibular disorder communities. Don’t forget to include both closed captions and a transcript when sharing the practice session so everyone in the disability community can provide feedback on the practice session.

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.?

Engage with and listen to a variety of disabled people. That’s the best way to understand the wide range of access needs and to humanize why inclusive event design matters.