Hi *|FNAME|*,
Today I would like to show you a great example of how the culture of accessibility can rapidly evolve in an organization.
To preface it, I never believed in just legislation improving accessibility. It is a vital part, but even more importantly, members of an organization, interest groups, nations, etc. need to be on board with it and have to believe in its importance.
So, here is an amazing story I brought for you today:
Recently Hungary had an election, and the new minister of social and family affairs, who is also responsible for accessibility is a blind lawyer, Vilmos Katai-Nemeth.
Right now the new government is a big thing in Hungary, and all the ministers are very active in social media posting about their plans and their work.
Minister Katai-Nemeth also does, he posts many photos, and he ends each post by saying that for our visually impaired readers, the photo description is as follows. And he (or his staff) provides a meaningful, interesting and thorough description.
He never talked about accessibility (yet), never said how things should work, just shows up twice a day on Facebook, writes about something, and adds described pictures.
And the amazing thing: a few days later, I started noticing that some of the other ministers started to follow the example and started describing the photos. Not that detailed, not that interesting, but it is there, and they are thinking about it.
Then a couple of weeks later, I started noticing this as a new trend. Bloggers, youtubers, actors and influencers started posting photo descriptions. Some properly tagging the photos, some specifically calling it out that it is for visually impaired people, some just add the description to the end of the post, but it is there, it is great, and it is meaningful.
All it took was a man to start doing the right thing quietly.
And why am I telling you this?
Because your organization doesn’t have to be a government or a ministry to make a difference. When you quietly start doing something to improve accessibility, sooner or later people will ask you what it is or will just follow the right thing.
It can be the description of your photos on social media.
It can be to offer to send out the presentations before a meeting.
It can be that you ask during the registration process if people need any accommodations.
It can be that when you write directions for an event you also list how to get there using public transportation.
Next time you would like to introduce another step to a more accessible environment, you will already have a group of people who are already on board.
On another note, I continued the series about the accessibility committees, this time:
What is the purpose of an accessibility committee.
I cover topics like:
Accessibility doesn’t happen just by accident
It is a process
Lived experience changes the quality of decisions
Accountability
Culture and compliance
Barriers are harder to ignore
And why every organization benefits from an accessibility committee.
Thank you for all the feedback about this series, this will help me to shape and improve the upcoming chapters.
Have a great week:
Tom