Interview with Nicolas Steenhout

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 disabled web accessibility professional. I am a public speaker and trainer on the topic of disability inclusion and accessibility. I use a wheelchair for mobility, and I have a mobility assistance dog. I also have arthritis in my hands. And I am mildly hard of hearing.

These impairments have an effect on both in-person and virtual 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?

Not using a microphone to speak – Makes it incredibly hard for me to hear and/or understand what is said. Similarly, when the presenter doesn’t repeat audience questions when microphones aren’t available for the audience questions, by the time I figured what the question was, I missed the presenter’s answer!

At one tech conference, the keynote presenter asked the audience to stand up if they’d been working in tech for more than 5 years. I had been working in tech, and been in senior roles, for many times that. But I couldn’t stand up. The keynote presenter wasn’t intentionally excluding me. But they did. They didn’t mean to make me feel bad. But they did. Avoid asking for “a show of hands” for the same reason.

If you are providing any kind of materials, hand-outs, etc, ensure you have extra. Often they are left on the chairs. But when audience members come in with their own (wheel) chair, if there are no extra handouts, we don’t have access to it!

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?

Creating slides with fewer words, using larger fonts. It allows me to read the slides from way back in the room, which is often the only place I can park my wheelchair.

Avoid, or explain, jargon. Not everyone is familiar with jargon. By the time I’ve parsed a term I’m not familiar with, I may have missed several minutes of your presentations, and lost precious mental energy in the process.

Speakers who cover all the content of their slides without reading the actual slides are more engaging to me. It’s easier to say focused. On the other hand, speakers who describe images that aren’t purely eye candy make it a win – this is important for my friends with vision issues, but also for me, as it tells me the parts of the image that are perceived as really important for the speaker.

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?

Talk to disabled folks. Read up on disability etiquette, and on accessibility. Speak to accessibility experts. Keep in mind that disabilities aren’t always visible. Expand your social media circles to include disability rights advocates. Engage with them. It will expand your world, and give you plenty of ideas on how to improve your presentations from an accessibility perspective.

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.?

Attendees fighting accessibility at an event will get physically and cognitively tired, and as a result, presenters may already have audience members that have difficulty before the presentation has started. Presenters can only control their own presentation. And that can already be a big job. But so much of events, in-person or remote, depends on the organizers. The right environment, or access to the right information, will make a difference. As a speaker, do feel free to talk to the organizers and ask pointed questions, like “will there be live, human-created captioning for this event?”, or “will there be microphones available for both speakers and audience?”. These prompts may help organizers improve the event, hence making the entire experience better.