Journey to Universal Design: What does it take to be accessible and inclusive

Nov 22

Universal Design is a process. It is not something that can be developed and implemented in an instant. Removing and mitigating barriers to create an inclusive experience for everyone requires intention and awareness of diversity and accessibility. We also have to consider the intersectionality and the uniqueness of someone’s lived experiences, choices, and situations that may not fully fit the universality concept.

Knowing the considerations we need to keep in mind for creating inclusive experiences, it makes it imperative that it is an ongoing process with many moving parts. The need for continuous training, collaboration, and leadership from people who live with these barriers to inform how processes should be evaluated, implemented, and updated. Without being informed by people you are intending to support and uplift in the process, how do you know that the process is working?

What is Universal Design

Universal Design is guided by seven (7) principles. In order to fully understand on these principles, you first need to know the definition of Universal Design which is best explained by the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design,

“Universal Design is the design and composition of an environment so that it can be accessed, understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people regardless of their age, size, ability or disability.”

It is looking at the environment that you exist in and plan on utilizing and improving the space so that everyone can access it in an inclusive and equitable way. It is mainly focused on the built environment and products but the principles can be interpreted and applied to many areas like information and communications.

Centre for Excellence in Universal Design’s 7 Principles are a great tool to learn and understand what is the expectation of Universal Design. The seven (7) principles are,

Principle 1: Equitable Use: Aim for all users to utilize

Principle 2: Flexibility in Use: Has the flexibility to suit different needs

Principle 3: Simple and Intuitive Use: Easy to understand

Principle 4: Perceptible Information: Different modes of communications that are legible.

Principle 5: Tolerance for Error: Minimize harm

Principle 6: Low Physical Effort: Comfortable and easy to use without taking too much energy

Principle 7: Size and Space for Approach and Use: Consider different heights, sizes, and ensuring enough space for assistive technologies

These principles can provide guidance to what you need to evaluate and guidance in the brainstorming and development processes. It should be involved at the start, but it is available for you to evaluate at any point.

Part of your process, not an afterthought

To incorporate universal design is not a one and done process. Things are constantly changing and improving to make our lives easier in different ways. With new technologies and ways of doing, there is a need to continue evaluating and adapting to meet the different needs for an inclusive experience. While this may have some work upfront, once it is part of your process, it can be effective considering the common situation with different needs.

For example, you are designing and planning an event without considering the different communications needs in order for information to be accurately represented and understood. However, as an organization, you determined that adding an accessibility accommodations question to registration is considered due diligence. You start promoting the event two weeks before thinking it is enough time to get registration and interest for the event. Two days before the event, a registration comes in with an accommodation request for captioning so that information can be equally accessible for this person. You did plan for this. You do not know how to fulfill the request. You don’t know how to respond to this person knowing that you did not consider different needs earlier in the process. This is common but it is not the standard we should strive for.

Instead, you could have evaluated your resources and options in the beginning of the planning process. Once you consider the risks and likelihood, you either include processes and services into your event regardless of any requests, include services and processes for flexibility if there are options to cancel, or make it clear in the registration and communication process of your process ensuring ample time for people to find your event, request accommodations, and for you to make the changes needed for an inclusive event. This is something you can consider now in your work.

There are different aspects of the process for embedding universal design into your process.

Audit: Audit the current environment, practices, capacity, and tools to see what are your barriers and gaps that exist. An audit can also include potential ones that could work for your organization and is suitable for the barrier you are working to remove.

Planning and logistics: What is currently your process, what is missing, what resources and capacity you have, what are your limitations. These are questions that should be asked when you are planning and working on a project that involves people.

Consultation: You don’t know everything. You may even have a hard time determining the barriers that exist and the tools that could be useful. To inform planning and logistics as well as implementation. Consider lived experiences in barriers for implementation and consider staff and volunteers experiences for planning and logistics. The ones that do the work will have the knowledge to know what is in their capacity, what exists and what is missing if accurate training and information is provided.

Implementation: The act of putting the solutions into action. It is the best you have with the knowledge you have.

Feedback and Updates: Go to the experts, what is going well, what is not, are there still barriers, what have you improved on. Considering the barriers and making sure you are not creating more is a continuous process. Taking in the feedback and update accordingly can make each experience a little easier and smoother until it is second nature.

These aspects are the big picture to include universal design and considering different needs to your process. It can look different depending on where you are, what resources you have access to, who your audience is, how many barriers exist in your environment, and if you have a process (or some version of one) that is embedded in your work.

Ways to approach the process development (or adjustment)

There are different ways you can approach improving or creating a process that considers universal design and encourages inclusion.

The ideal way

In an ideal world, this would be a whole organizational and systemic shift. You create a strategy, evaluate the whole system and its processes, inform a group of people to receive feedback, create an action plan, implement said action plan, and update accordingly. The reason this is ideal is because of the commitment as a whole to move forward and be consistent throughout the whole organization. The issue with this, it takes so much time.

The realistic way

The easiest way is to do it by sections. Chances are the system has its natural division of work and intertwines with collaboration. If you start at a program to improve that first before moving on to the next area, it would get a little easier and faster due to the internal collaboration. While giving each area autonomy and decision-making, it may not be consistent throughout the entire system and during the process, can be confusing to people who interact with your organization to know the standards and expectations you are following.

The middle ground way

A middle ground is to strategize at a high level to set the standards, goals and expectations with the action plan being more on the working in sections. With a common goal and strategy, it will likely be more consistent in the processes of the organization while ensuring that high priority areas are meeting the needs first. With the strategy and plan, other areas can learn and make quick and small adjustments until their revamp happens. It can be easier overtime as there is a guide to follow and refer to and a way for collaboration and knowledge sharing to exist.

All of these ways can work depending on the structure and systems in place. If you understand and plan the timing, gaps, and transitional period, most of the cons I mention can be mitigated.

Not a one and done process

Being inclusive and accessible is not something that can be magically set up in one swoop. There are new ideas, societal changes, new technologies and innovation that can improve people’s experiences including your own to make it easier to facilitate and implement. The beauty of going through an audit and implementing a process as a whole means that you have done the bulk of the work to remove barriers. It also provides a process for evaluation, updates, and training or learning opportunities to be able to spot the barriers and remove them before someone experiences it. It is part of a mindset. It may start as a documented process but can evolve into a behaviour that informs the values and mindset that is inclusive and adaptive to making sure that everyone can be involved if they want to.

Amanda

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