Interview with Neil Milliken

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 dyslexic and have ADHD. I much prefer in-person events to attending virtually, if there is meant to be active participation. Whilst it is fine to watch a webinar of a finite length, I cannot sit through a day or two of such things. Plus the reality of life with remote work means that over the last few years unless I am presenting at a virtual conference, I rarely get the opportunity to be able to sit and learn because the computer is full of distractions, and I have my work surrounding me.

One of the best things about going to in-person events is being able to close the computer and focus on a speaker or a presentation. I also really value the water cooler conversations that can be had at in-person events.

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 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.

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 love presentations with a few carefully selected words and pictures that reinforce the concept. Where we have slides that can support storytelling, it really connects and fires my imagination.

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?

Make your on-demand content available in multiple formats if possible. Bear in mind to provide transcripts, and captions, and if you can, also add audio descriptions for videos. And if you are designing slides, leave a space at the bottom so that there can be captions without them overlapping with your content.

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.?

Bear in mind that many presenters with disabilities have limited spoons, and making presentations accessible in a multitude of formats takes time and energy and may even put the person through their own disability pain barrier. If possible, conference organizers should offer to take on this work especially if the speakers are doing it for free.