Accessibility requests should not be this hard to solve
Recently, I had to register for a conference. The conference is actually being run by my department and I am speaking at it, but the registration process is being done by a central conference office.
I went online to register and found they had a space to indicate access needs. YAY! They called it "special physical needs" which is not the language I would recommend when discussing access needs of professional adults, some of whose access needs may not be strictly "physical," but I can deal with it. They have another space to indicate "special dietary needs," after all.
They provided a text box. You could type something in. You could type anything in. So long as it was 20 or fewer characters.
My access needs can't be adequately explained in 20 characters, nor can the access needs of many other PWD I know. And I have multiple access needs. (I did type in a few common access needs, not mine personally, to see what was under 20 characters. "Wheelchair access" fits. "ASL interpreter" fits. "Large print" fits. So some common access needs do fit. "No stairs," which is one thing I need, fits. "Announce before using flash photography" which was an issue for me at last year's conference, doesn't.
I ended up registering on a paper form instead, for reasons unrelated to the accessibility problem. They had a check-box on the paper form, so if you had access needs you could check the box and then you would be contacted for further information. I'm not a big fan of this method, because it adds extra steps and a whole conversation, but at least it assures the person that there will be further contact for clarification. The online form gave no such assurance.
So I expressed my concern about the online form. First I expressed it through the conference contact in my department. When nothing changed, I sent an e-mail to the central conference office, suggesting a larger textbox, or at the least, a notice similar to that on the paper form that someone would contact the person for further information. I followed it up with an e-mail to the head of our organization accessibility committee, as a heads up that the issue arose and I was trying to address it.
(I am a member of my organization's accessibility committee. I am the only person with a disability on the accessibility committee. I keep bringing up access concerns that I personally have encountered to the accessibility committee. It's all pretty funny.)
A few days later, I got a response back through the accessibility office that the online form had been changed to offer more options. I logged on to see.
They offer options now, all right. 4 of them. There is no longer ANY free text box. The choices are: "wheelchair access," "scooter access," "vision impairment" and "hearing impairment."
None of those describe any of my access needs. At all. Wheelchairs and scooters are not the only ways to describe a mobility impairment. If I requested "wheelchair access" I would at least know I wouldn't be asked to climb stairs, but I shouldn't have to lie about my mobility device.
And even for people who do fit one of those categories, stating the impairment doesn't really describe the needs in any useful way. If someone told me they had a vision impairment, I still wouldn't know if they needed front row seating, Brailled materials, large print materials, e-mailed materials that could be read by a screen reader or something else I'm not even considering. If someone told me they had a hearing impairment, I still wouldn't know if if I should hire an ASL interpreter, a CART interpreter or set up an FM system through IT.
Whereas all of those specific needs could be typed very clearly into a text box, without the need to then contact the person further to clarify. If the text box were only large enough. Which is what I suggested in the first place.
I suppose I should be grateful they are considering access in the first place. But it's especially frustrating that I explained how to do it better, and instead they made it worse. At least with 20 free-text characters, a person could have typed "E-mail me"!