Interview with Lucy Greco

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 am a blind accessibility evangelist and I attend many different conferences, both ones for people with disabilities and ones that are not. My goal at all of these conferences is to teach people how best to make their content accessible.

When I need to attend an in-person conference, I often need to find my way around difficult mazes of rooms and exhibit halls. My challenge for this tends to be the same for both specialized conferences as well as the mainstream ones. Rooms do not have labels, speakers don’t read their slides, and exhibit halls are laid out in complex patterns with no wayfinding aids.

When attending an online conference, the problems can be somewhat similar, but are exacerbated because very few conferences use technology that is tested for access, and can sometimes block me. I tend to only attend online conferences I speak at, because of this.

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?

Far too many presenters depend on their slides to talk. They 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.

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?

A speaker who talks through the slides and explains them as they go is always a good talk for me to go to. For example, one person I love to watch always talks through why she picked the image she used and tells the audience all about the image, what it means and what it looks like. Her slides are simple and have very little text, and she later puts the content online as a full-text article.

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?

If you can give your talk without slides, and then bring your slides in to the talk, make sure you describe them. Your talk will be more interesting for everyone. Adding images do make a talk more interesting, but expecting everyone to see them is not so good.

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.?

The technology that is used at an online event is key to making it comfortable and effective or not. Be sure that the platforms used when it’s a virtual event works for everyone. Often, a conference has an accessible way for the attendees, but not for the speakers.