Thursday 15 May 2025 was Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). To help raise awareness and build empathy, we gave Content Designers Ireland some hands-on accessibility frustrations. Our accessibility scavenger hunt is the perfect exercise for people to:
- find out about barriers that inconsiderate design can create for people who use assistive technology
- learn about quick ways to test the accessibility of their work
Running the event
The accessibility scavenger hunt is a challenge to find a series of facts and figures online. But the challenges must be done while using assistive technology. First we use keyboard navigation, then we try different magnification levels. It’s an insight into the everyday experiences and frustrations of an assistive tech user.
Every time we run an event, we change the challenges. Sometimes that’s because inaccessibility issues on a particular website have been fixed (yay!). Other times we change the exercises to make them more relevant to the participants.
It’s really important to us that any exercises about disability and accessibility are run by people that encounter the barriers created by inaccessibility on a daily basis. We use the assistive technology we talk about in real life, so we know when something’s an accessibility fail rather than user error. We intend to build empathy and not pity. It’s not always possible to do that unless the event is led by someone with lived experience.
We always run the event with small groups - that way we can:
- be on hand to help and guide
- give participants clues about potential workarounds
- make sure everyone’s included and is getting the most they can from the session
We also get feedback every time, so we can keep iterating, improving and perfecting the scavenger hunt.
Futureproofing with accessibility
Anyone could develop a disability at any point, whether it’s temporary or permanent. We’re also more likely to become disabled as we get older. Most people will experience disability at some point in their lives – whether that’s directly, or a close friend or relative becoming disabled. Even if you don’t know it yet, accessibility matters to you. Personally.
A scavenger hunt highlights how badly designed some websites are, and how users with accessibility needs are excluded from using them.
Collecting feedback
We finish our scavenger hunt by asking how people found the tasks. What was easy? What was difficult? Was there anything they found surprising? We ask participants how stressed they feel. To make sure everyone has something to take away from the exercise and put into practice, we ask what people would do differently in the future to add accessibility focus to their work.
After our event, we always collect feedback through a simple survey. This time, all of the participants who responded:
- learned something new
- found the accessibility scavenger hunt useful and relevant to their work
- would recommend the accessibility scavenger hunt to their colleagues
- will use keyboard navigation and browser magnification as part of testing their work in future
Join us for an accessibility scavenger hunt
You can now book a place on an accessibility scavenger hunt.
If you'd like to talk about us running an accessibility scavenger hunt for your organisation, email us at contact@contentdesignireland.ie.