Space and event coordination

This is for people who help coordinate spaces and events, from building managers to event planners, or public-facing staff who arrange or reset furniture in spaces.

Introduction

From the University of Washington:

As increasing numbers of people with disabilities pursue educational opportunities at all levels, the accessibility of campus facilities and physical spaces increases in importance. The goal is simply equal access; everyone who visits your campus should be able to do so comfortably and efficiently.

Additionally:

To make your department or institution welcoming and accessible to everyone, employ principles of universal design (UD). Universal design means that rather than designing your facility and services for the average user, you design for people with a broad range of abilities, ages, reading levels, learning styles, languages, cultures, and other characteristics. Keep in mind that students, staff, faculty, and visitors may have characteristics that are not defined as disabilities, but may limit their ability to access physical spaces or information. These people could be short, tall, poor readers, left-handed, or speak a different language. Preparing your campus to be accessible to them will make it more usable by everyone and minimize the need for special accommodations. Make sure everyone:

• feels welcome,
• can get to facilities and maneuver within them,
• is able to fully benefit from resources and courses, and
• can make use of equipment and software.

Besides the basic principles of UD, to ensure IT used in the space and instructional practices are inclusive of all space users, apply principles that underpin the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and the Universal Design for Learning (UDL), respectively. See the publication Universal Design in Education: Principles and Applications.

Core skills

Go through the different sources to learn about each topic.

• Media accessibility
  • Multimedia Accessibility from Harvard University
• Accessible event planning
  • Planning an Accessible Event from University of Maryland
• Space design and planning
  • Creating Accessible Spaces from Charlotte University
  • Making a Makerspace? Guidelines for Accessibility and Universal Design from University of Washington
• XR accessibility
  • Introduction to XR Accessibility from Tetra Logical
  • Virtual Environments Accessibility Guidelines from University of South Carolina
  • Virtual Reality Accessibility from University of Melbourne
  • XR Accessibility Project from W3C

Other general sources

Check out some of these great additional resources:

• Accessibility Guidelines for VR Games - A Comparison and Synthesis of a Comprehensive Set from Frontiers
• Standards for Accessible Design from ADA

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