Accessibility Meetup Survey

Thanks to all participants who took the time to complete this survey. The information below, shared by follow accessibility meetup organizers, will help our entire community.

Table of Contents

• Accessibility Meetup's Represented
• Accessibility Meetup Fun Facts
• Managing Your Meetup
• Meetup Frequency and Formats
• Speakers/Presenters
• Meetup Features
• Accessible Presentations
• Meetup Venues
• Fees & Sponsorships
• Managing Meetup Expectations
• Communication with Meetup members
• Meetup Promotion
• Interaction with the Disability Community

Accessibility Meetup's Represented

29 meetups are represented in these survey results:

• Ann Arbor: Ann Arbor Accessibility Group
• Austin: Austin Accessibility Meetup (a11yATX)
• Berlin: Berlin A11y Meetup
• Boston: Boston Accessibility Meetup (a11ybos)
• Boulder: Front Range Accessibility and Inclusive Design
• Buffalo: Buffalo Accessibility Meet-up
• Canberra: Canberra Web Accessibility & Inclusive Design
• Cedar Rapids: Iowa Web Accessibility, UX & Inclusive Design
• Chicago: Chicago Digital Accessibility & Inclusive Design Meetup (a11ychi)
• Detroit: Refresh Detroit
• Dublin: Dublin Accessible Web Design Meetup
• Helsinki: Helsinki Web Accessibility Meetup
• Hyderabad: Hyderabad Inclusive Design & Accessibility
• London: London Accessibility Meetup
• Los Angeles: Los Angeles Accessibility and Inclusive Design
• Minneapolis St. Paul: Accessibility Twin Cities
• Montreal: Montreal a11yMTL meetup - web accessibility & inclusive design
• New York City: Accessibility New York City (a11yNYC)
• Ottawa: Ottawa Accessibility Meetup (a11yYOW)
• Portland: Portland Accessibility and User Experience Meetup
• Princeton (NJ): A11Y Princeton
• Québec City: Rendez-vous a11yQC - Accessibilité Web & design inclusif (Québec city)
• Raleigh: a11yRTP (Raleigh, NC)
• San Francisco: Bay Area Accessibility and Inclusive Design
• Seattle: Seattle Accessibility Meetup (a11ySea)
• Stockholm: t12t - Stockholm
• Sydney: Sydney Web Accessibility and Inclusive Design meetup
• Toronto: Toronto Accessibility Meetup (a11yTO)
• Utrecht: Inclusive Design and Accessibility - "idea11y" / role=drinks

Accessibility Meetup Fun Facts

Based on responding meetups:

• Age
  • Oldest: Sydney Web Accessibility and Inclusive Design Meetup (2010)
  • Youngest: Dublin Accessible Web Design Meetup (2018)
• Member Size
  • Largest: Chicago Digital Accessibility & Inclusive Design Meetup (1400)
  • Smallest: Dublin Accessible Web Design Meetup (24)
  • Average size: 480
• Number of Organizers per Meetup
  • Most Organizers: A11y Meetup Berlin (7)
  • Least Organizers: Multiple (1)
  • Average: 3

Managing Your Meetup

Information about how meetups are managed.

For the meetups that only have one organizer, in the majority of cases, the primary organizer as not found anyone for the supporting organizer roles. Most of these are young meetups (one year or less).

The biggest challenges for organizers with little to no organizer support was finding the time to handle the logistics of setting up meetup events (venue, speakers, etc.) and meetup promotion. At least one meetup organizer mentioned that while they have other organizers, they handle the majority of the administration themselves.

Meetup Frequency and Formats

Speakers/Presenters

Meetup Features

How do you record or live stream

• Work with Joly MacFie from Internet Society of New York http://isoc-ny.org/
• Live stream from laptop cam connected to YouTube live stream/Google Hangout. Use second camera on iPad for backup recording, as well as editing in different camera angles post-event. Use lapel mic for presenter to ensure live stream can clearly be heard.
• Zoom video conference recording
• The event location does it for us
• We use media services, then host videos on YouTube
• We live streamed for the first time in February 2018 and used Skype. Continued live streaming will depend on the venue setup (we change venues every month)
• YouTube Live
• Publish videos on YouTube afterwards

If you "don't" record or live stream, please explain why?

• Pulsed audience and there is no interest
• trying to get folk to network at the events
• Lack of resources with recording, producing, and captioning
• We haven't seen the need. However we did live stream the last one because the presenter joined us from Austin (to Boulder). He set it up and we had 8 people sign in to watch it. That was eye opening.
• Because of time, resources and money. It would be awesome to record and even stream our events but we don't have the equipment for it right now. Even if we did have equipment to record our events we would need one or two people dedicated to this to take care of captions etc. These are resources and time we don't have right now. But it would be lovely to have it in the future!v
• Cost, access to equipment, it can also put some speakers off from sharing their experiences as we live in a government city
• That requires money and equipment, and our focus is really on developing a local a11y community. We are in the process of developing that capability. We've occasionally tried live streaming. Part of the issue is connectivity.
• We only just started the meetup, and would like to do this eventually. Haven't had the time yet to figure out the logistics for it.
• No request for it. Too expensive and complicated. We want interpersonal interaction anyway.
• We haven't had enough meetings to really start to think about streaming or recording, still trying to get off of the ground
• Never considered it, mostly due to the extra work. host does not have free public wifi most often so no reliable internet
• Honestly, I'm considering stopping the recording. It's expensive and under utilized.
• Some more planned out events have been recorded. Not all events are formal. Sometimes it's just chatting at a restaurant or bar so not the best atmosphere to record.
• It’s expensive
• Lack of funds and time to setup a good solution
• Never thought about it.
• We have been organising very small events, and haven't had easy access to the skills/equipment.
• Technology not available.
• We haven't in the past because it is too much overhead/
• I believe strongly that what makes our Meetup local and useful are the interactions that can only happen in-person.
• Demand and lack of platform
• We don't want to cannibalize our in-person attendance, and we haven't had much demand for it. Haven't had demand for it; our meetup events have been infrequent.
• Hard enough to do the meetup
• The organising of the meetup alone is time intensive, recording/live streaming with captioning and transcription would add too much to this.
• Budget and technology limitations
• Close caption is a big reason why we don't do it
• we don't yet have the resources to do it properly
• Haven't looked into live streaming
• We don't have equipment and we are still at our first meetup.
• It is a local meet-up with little traction.
• Cost - need to find a sponsor

If you "do" provide live captioning and/or sign language interpreters, please share how

• only for the camp, once a year. Online cart service
• We provide cart and detailed it here https://equalentry.com/how-to-create-an-accessible-meetup/
• CART when funding allows
• Remote live captioning via ACS. Provided transcript for syncing with edited recording.
• Service provider
• i don't know, the film crew does it
• We had White Coat captioning provide remote CART. It was a challenge logistically.
• we remotely connect with a captioner
• CART services at larger events, with interpreters on request.v
• Currently, hire ACS Captions as as primary service provider. Regarding ASL interpreters, may use personal connections or via another provider
• We've had captioning and sign language interpreters present, brought by attendees. We do ask on our meetup page if someone is in need of these services.
• We use CART services for captioning on a large monitor
• Barclays sponsor the live captions - they pay for https://twitter.com/mycleartext to attend the events

If you "don't" provide live captioning and/or sign language interpreters, please explain why?

• Hard to find someone to caption session.
• We haven't had the skills to do this and we haven't had anyone ask. (Poor excuse, but that's the truth of the matter.)
• Did not have funding for services
• Costs and equipment. We don't have any funding.
• Expense
• Cost; we are a mission-based startup and pretty much bear the cost on our own.
• Cost (primarily). If we know ahead of time, we can make arrangements.
• Have not yet had anyone who is Deaf or hard of hearing attend.
• No request for it. We would try to accommodate any such request, however.
• We're still new, haven't got that far into things.
• Not sure? We had a deaf lady who asked if we provided interpreters and we said we did not and she brought 2 of her own interpreters.
• Funding.
• One time a free live captioner was demoed on screen during the length of a Meetup that worked pretty well. If someone requested it, it could be provided but our meetups are usually small gatherings in a relatively small town where it's not necessary or cost effective.
• Expensive
• No requests for it (yet)
• We have not had members who use sign language attend.
• I would love to, and have always invited people to contact me with requests like this, but as a very small group, the need hasn't been there yet.
• Haven't thought of this much.
• Cost.
• People don't request it, and we don't automatically provide it due to lack of funding.
• Haven't had a request for this, and we are pretty small-scale.
• Cost. We are working on sponsorships now to help defray cost.
• Cost
• we don't yet have the resources to do it properly
• We don't have equipment and we are still at our first meetup.
• Because we have so few attendees, and nobody has identified as needing it.
• Cost - need sponsorships

If "sometimes," explain when you do ?

• $
• Mostly for the annual camp
• Deaf attendee brought their own.
• When our presenter insist on it and help pay for it.
• With sponsors
• We do, based on attendee requests.
• When we have demand and sponsors
• Larger events/conferences.
• When we have someone who needs it
• We recorded our A11Y Tour meetup (two city tour) and paid for a transcription service. We are waiting for the output of the transcription to create caption for the videos before we promote them.
• Have only done it once, when we received mini-grant for captioning

If you have incorporated live audio description, please share how you do it?

• Trying it out working with aira.io
• A person sits with the individual who requires it
• We plan to do this in the future with Caption Access.
• I have never heard of this. Please share the results.
• Remote captioned on phone projected onto a screen
• Accessible Joe took care of it
• We try to describe relevant content happening in the space over the microphone to make sure people have info they need to experience/enjoy the meetup

If you have never incorporated live audio description, please explain why?

• $
• Lack of funding
• Actually we might do that ad hoc. We have blind/ vi individuals who attend and we do remind presenters both before and during the presentation to audio describe anything that is on the slides that might be hard to see.
• Haven't seen events were we would benefit from it, based on presentation content.
• Have not received any requests for it
• we only had one meeting so far. live captioning would be great to have.
• Costs
• Expense, and there's not much of anything to describe at this point. Presenters are asked to describe their slides
• We have not recorded any of our meetups yet... they've been small.
• No request for it. No understanding about how to do it. Probably unnecessary given our meeting format. Have only had a couple of meetings, one owas a social and one was a discussion, so no need yet.
• Just the extra work to arrange and implement.
• we don't do live streaming
• I have no idea how this would work.
• Hasn't been necessary to provide formal audio description for our small meetups. Even with people at times having low vision attend, they were able to follow along and contribute to the conversations easily.
• We have live streamed anything yet. Though I do describe things that are going on in the room to some of our low vision attendees.
• No reason yet
• As previously stated, the issues are a very small group where this hasn't been needed, and cost/expertise. That said, all speakers so far have been very good at presenting inclusively and not relying on anything visual.
• Haven't thought of this
• Cost. However, we try to make sure our presenters are using inclusive presentation techniques that negates the need for audio description.
• The discussion at the event is the bulk of the content, and we encourage speakers to describe their slides. We don't do live streaming.
• We've worked to make our events accessible to people who are blind or have low vision without the need for audio description. Two of our main organizers are blind, so this has happened fairly naturally.
• We have not had a member request yet.
• Personally, haven't looked into it more throughly
• Honestly it's not crossed my mind. I'm not even sure if that makes sense given our short-talk format.
• we're not recording the events
• We don't have equipment and we are still at our first meetup.
• I have never shown video nor provided anything other than face-to-face interaction.

If you do have remote speakers, please share your experiences?

• Once, with Chicago when they had a remote speaker. It was a good exp
• We had Karl Groves last year and Paul Adam last month. Both are very experienced presenters and people on our end were very engaged. Lots of questions and appreciation of the quality of their skills.
• Had Laura Kalbag from Sweden present via YouTube Live Stream/Google Hangout. Required good wifi connectivity. Some buffering lag, but generally good. Plan future remote speakers.
• We had good experience pairing a short presentation by a local, in-person speaker with a longer presentation by the remote speaker.
• It went really well, except when we had those connectivity issues.
• Choppy video and other problems.
• We've had a few folks present via webinar to our local group. Maybe 1 or 2.
• We had Matt Ater speak remotely. It was a technical disaster :) Will not repeat.
• We've had two remote speakers, Karl Groves and Paul Adam. With Karl the setup was good and we had a good presentation, but he was unable to see our group which made questions difficult. I ended up moderating and would interrupt Karl whenever questions came up in the room. For Paul, we had an 8 second delay between what he was presenting on screen and what was "live". So we actually had a call with him going on while the live stream was also up. It was tech nightmare, but it was very informative and everyone seemed to get something out of it.
• Skype
• We project via Cvent.
• Great for diversifying topics and speakers, but can cause more logistics work to ensure quality presentation Good
• During GAAD 2017, we collaborated with A11yYOW and A11yMtl to watch their meetup in Quebec City. Because of the equipment that was used in Ottawa to broadcast the sound, the experience was not exceptional for our participants.

Accessible Presentations

Meetup Venues

How do you locate venues for your meetups?

• Word of mouth (2)
• partnership with local university
• Through the co-organizers connections
• We are blessed to have a host for free for the past couple of years. We are on their calendar. They host several Meetups and see it as part of their community service.
• Initially, reached out to members with connections. Now, we're blessed in having venues come to us.
• Most commonly at the office of one of our co-organizer's employers.
• we have one sponsored main location
• We ask around among our contacts.
• Depends upon volunteers being able to use their work spaces
• Work and other professional connections, word of mouth, experiences with other meetups
• We use our office as the default base and other sponsors volunteer.
• Right now, we're using space donated by IBM.
• Local connections who work for local companies in town, mostly
• Corporate sponsorship. First Microsoft for a few years. IBM has sponsored for years now.
• Try to find restaurants with meeting rooms for lower cost. This has been one of our biggest struggles.
• Patrick Fox from Sapient Razorfish volunteered their location to our meet up group.
• We are lucky, we have access to rooms on campus. we always hold meetups in the same location
• We located a local coworking space that supports meetups by providing space to them in exchange for a short mention during the meetup about their facilities.
• We have used one venue for all formal meetups so far, which is technical community-focused space with excellent facilities.
• Free venues sponsored by start hubs & local businesses.
• Personal contacts with organisations.
• Members step forward to volunteer their venues, word of mouth as well has identified venues.
• From the group
• Networking, cold emailing
• We use one our co-organizers' workplaces.
• Mainly, personal connections or word-of-mouth or online directory for those open to hosting
• Beg Yahoo/OATH
• Word-of-mouth, we work together with other meetups and approach companies. Also social media outreach.
• I am in the process of getting a suitable venue. I am waiting for the venue to be ready for meetups, as it's undergoing renovation.
• Generally all venues have been secured pretty organically from the community.
• we always use the same accessible venues
• Yes. Barclays provided a venue for 6 meetups. Sainnsbury's are providing a venue going forward
• The local of our only sponsor the company "Ciao"
• Based on local business connections.
• Local co-working space

Fees & Sponsorships

If you do have sponsors, please share how did you obtained them?

• sometime we have some leftovers from the camp
• The host organization is the main one. We were looking for a free/ low cost venue in Boulder and lucked into them.
• Venue sponsors, either members or venue representatives have come to us. Live captions, used to request donations from members, and via social media (Twitter). Was contacted by Digital Accessibility Lead at McDonalds, to sponsor live captions.
• Employers of co-organizers; other professional contacts
• Location sponsor was asked by employee who is also organizer in our team
• Through personal contacts.
• Two of our organizers work at one of the company.
• Organizations have volunteered.
• Typically no formal sponsors for monthly meetings.
• Local connections.
• Community connections.
• Word of mouth, people who have an interest asking their boss to sponsor the meet up.
• They host us and get pizza and drinks.
• We have Tek Systems, a technical recruiting agency. They only provide light refreshments.
• Employer. Word of mouth.
• Requests to local businesses.
• word of mouth
• We try to have an organisation sponsor a single meetup which includes venue (their office) and food. Alcohol is optional.
• I consider sponsors to be the companies who donate space and provide food and drink. The Meetup does not have ongoing sponsors.
• Asked the group
• Employers, cold emailing, fostering relationships with companies
• Via one of our co-organizers
• Soft contact or those who have been seeking partnership in accessibility
• Asking nicely.
• Community sourced, generally, grown over time, relationships fostered.
• direct contact
• Spoke wit my personal contacts on the accessibility team at Barlcyas
• The a11yQC event was originally organized by the "Ciao" team. In the last 5 years it was an annual event of a full conference day with + - 200 participants. The formula has changed this year due to the complexity of finding speakers / sponsors and the costs of the event. A Meetup format was started in the fall of 2017 by members of the Ciao team who are accessibility specialists in Quebec City. Ciao is our only sponsor.
• Venue sponsor. For bigger events, I seek out sponsors.

If you have sponsors, what do they assist with?

• CART, food, venues
• Captioning Costs
  Food Costs
  Video Streaming Costs
  Location Costs
  Membership Dues for Meetup.com
• Donate space for us to meet, projection equipment.
• Venues, live captions, book discounts, meetup stickers.
• Location, food/drink, funding for accommodations
• location, food
• We consider the companies who hosts us to be our sponsors. We also have a specific company who sponsor the fee for meetup.com.
• Provided a small amount of money to be put towards general Meetup expenses (membership, event refreshments, etc.).v
• Venue, food and promotion
• Venue, food, advertising (a little)
• Venues for meetups and annual conference. Real time captioning. Dedicated staff. BTW: We have corporate sponsors, in addition to IBM, for our annual conferences.
• Venue, food and drink
• location, pizza, drinks
• They only provide light refreshments.
• Venue, beverages, swag.
• Preparing the social time, providing money for captioning and video recording.
• venue and food
• We do not have sponsors, however the space itself is provided to all meetups for free by a technology company.
• As above. We've just rebooted our meetup this year with sponsors, so the number of sponsors should be the same as the number of events per year (approximately 10).
• See above.
• Catering, venue, staff time
• Food, venues, live transcription
• They will match contributions: we are still early in this relationship, so nothing concrete has happened yet.
• Cover payments for captioning, stickers, professional development books, etc.
• Cold hard cash.
• Spaces, Food, Camp, Conf, Meetup food, beverages, CART services
• Unsure, someone else takes care of that, but they do supply the venue
• venue, food sometimes, some support mostly for annual conference
• Provide the venue, captions and film the events. I am actively looking for a sponsor for food and drink at the next event
• Cost for speaker, food

Managing Meetup Expectations

Note: I don't believe then figures related to this question to be accurate, due to survey responder confusion. The intent was to ask of the total RSVPs, what percentage actually attends, on average.

What steps have you taken, or ideas do you have, to improve your Meetup's attendance rate?

• send reminders 2 days before the events
• More promotion
• I reach out several times via LI, Twitter and emails directly via meetup.com to the group to encourage attendance by pointing out the unique features of the planned presentations. I try to send some ad out each week until the week before the presentation. Sometimes I reach out via Meetup to engage directly with people who will be attending.
• Not provide live stream (no impact), reduce the announcement/meetup promotion lead time to 2 weeks.
• Joint events with other local meetups; surveying members to find topics that have interest
• Town hall at camp; one on one chats with members
• Spread the invites over multiple channels
• We're really only just starting out, so right now
low attendance is attributed to needing to building our community and reputation.
• It's key to have set meetings stated for the year in advance. We choose the every other month, the last Monday. We select topics the group is interested in, announce them early and promote them well in social media and through the MeetUp platform.
• Pay attendees. A corporate sponsor, for example, could pay for parking or food. Another idea is to charge a nominal fee to encourage attendance, and to help defray costs, such as for food.
• We need to be more consistent, find a consistent and quiet enough venue.
• I have not had time to consider this.
• I have presented myself because we needed a topic some months I try to share useful things like checklists and testing tools.
• None really.
• Sometimes people show up who didn't RSVP because they happen to see the gathering in their building. But more often the turnout is lower than RSVPs. I think reminding people the night or couple days before the event by email is helpful. People sometimes forget or don't check the Meetup site or app as much as email. Also have tried changing the day and time to accommodate different schedules.
• asking the attendees what they would be interested in learning/talking about.
• I offer to buy everyone that attends a beer if they join us afterwards at a local brewery.
• havent thought about it
• Increased social media use recently. Organising a meetup to coincide with an international technology conference running nearby.
• Need to conduct meetups regularly. We do accessibility talks as part of other meetups.
• Emails 24 - 48 hours before the event.
• Given we don't charge, I accept the fact that there will always be 20-30% no-show rate. This helps manage any frustration, at least for me. There are also serial RSVPers who don't show up, for whatever reason. In short, I have not taken any steps to assure attendance levels.
• We don't hold meetups in August, and we try to send invites out through different channels.
• Switch to announcing two weeks before event instead of four weeks (long leeway may have people forgotten that they've signed up for the event)
• Diverse subjects. Approach design companies to host. More "of us, by us".
• Promote our meetup at other tech related meetups, maybe even do presentations at other meetups, like JS or HTML5 meetups
• none, really
• Started charging and opened registration later
• Harassment isn't doing it...
• Charge attendees to ensure they check their calendar and can attend

Note: I don't believe this feedback is on topic. It appears to address promotion of meetup events, rather than reducing the gap between RSVPs and actual attendance, as intended.

Communication with Meetup members

Meetup Promotion

Interaction with the Disability Community

How do you find individuals and active groups within your local disability communities?

• Word of mouth (3)
• word of mouth (3)
• encourage folks in my network to spread the word in their work place
• Through social media, primarily LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter
• Well, they are kind of my friends. We did make an effort to engage the Center for People with Disabilities because they are literally down the street from the venue. One of the Independent Living Advisors there has attended and presented. I would like to figure out how to bring in more people who identify with the Deaf and deaf communities but have not figured out how to do that.
• Contact local organizations, creating awareness of our meetup group. LOok for opportunities to partner.
• local advocacy groups; professional connections
• As organizers we ask around and we try to brainstorm new people that might be valuable to contact.
• Three of our organizers have been or are currently working on the field of accessibility or are very active in the local a11y community. We have various local connections, and our organizers present sometimes.
• Through our staff, testers and Board members as we all live with disabilities.
• Through the University of Michigan, also have a lot of professional connections through Deque (I work there, as does one of the other organizers)
• Websites, such as www.DisabilityInfo.org, social media, community contacts.
• So far have only relied on meetup.
• Usually through Government Groups.
• Word of mouth, social media, etc.
• We have only had one person with a disability speak. This person was connected to the co-organizer organization.
• Google search, email.
• Mostly via networking, but we did discover shortly after finding our current venue that the local Center for People with Disabilities is two doors down from us. So we reached out to them to exchange ideas and even had one of their independent living advisors speak at one of our meetups on their use of AT (Dragon).
• Word of mouth, and some specific (keyword/location) Twitter searches.
• Local knowledge or searching if there is a specific need.
• Since my primary audience are designers, developers, and others in the high-tech community, I don't have a specific focus on interacting with local groups of people with disabilities on an ongoing basis.
• There is already a large disability community in Seattle, and people tend to invite themselves
• Personal networks, meetup.com
• Network. Also want to mention that our speakers work in accessibility, which is why we do not coach on presentations. Often, we're learning from them.
• On the internet and/or asking members where to find
• Social media, word-of-mouth, conference attendance.
• I am primarily dealing with web accessibility.
There is a huge gap in understanding in this area in Dublin. My aim is to help instruct designers/developers create more accessible, progressive web sites.
• Word of mouth mostly
• Very open to learning more and excited about us doing these meetups
• Yeah, about that. Social media, word of mouth, former/current clients, cross-promoting with other local meet-up groups.
• word-of-mouth