Why accessibility matters in your shopfront or office?
If you are neurotypical, meaning that you don’t have a brain that works a bit differently to what has been thought of as a “normal” brain – e.g. Autism, ADHD, OCD, Anxiety, Intellectual Disability, Dyslexia etc., referred to as neurodivergent – there is a good chance that any shop or office you walk into doesn’t have environmental issues or communicated messages that bother or confuse you. Let me unpack that. The lights aren’t something you notice, you can’t smell anything unusual, the signs all make sense to you and if you have to fill out a form, it is simple and every question makes sense with the answer being obvious. You know how to navigate the space and what is expected of you without thinking about it and everything is designed to prioritise your needs so highly that it doesn’t even occur that you have needs that have been met.
This is most often not the case for neurodivergent folk. Often the lights are too bright, with an unreplaced flickering bulb, an audible buzz from a faulty socket or worse, both. The layouts can be confusing; shopfronts can be over-filled creating points where navigating past others is confronting and the ideal way to walk is not clear. Signs might have ambiguous meanings, leaving Neurodivergent folk stuck, unsure which way to read them. Forms can be stressful to fill out, with the information being requested unclear, and reception staff are often too busy to assist or annoyed by questions they think are obvious. Some shops and offices have strongly scented air-fresheners that can cause headaches and sensory overload in Neurodivergent folk and music or a television can be playing distressingly loud.
Perhaps the issues can be about processes, rather than the environment. If your work involves an appointment, be it medical, fitness or beauty related, can a new client request the typical questions asked in advance, so that they can prepare answers beforehand? Can they ask questions or let your business know about access needs? Can someone with mobility equipment (cane, walker, wheelchair) access your premises without assistance and without having to call or press a button for someone to let them in without a key? If you have an accessible bathroom, is it clean, free of stock and equipment and pleasant to use? Are your staff trained to work with diverse clients or customers, from disability, trans, First Nations and culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds? Are your forms designed to fit diverse responses and to make sense to folk from different backgrounds? Do you have feedback processes to capture if there are any issues for diverse groups that you can address?
This seems like a lot, I get it. How many people can this even effect? Maybe they should just go somewhere else, somewhere that caters to their needs...
From the 2021 census, over 20% of Australians have some from of disability (ABS, 20241) and First Nations People are estimates to make up close to 4% of the population (ABS, 20243). From the same census, it was estimated that around 4.5% of the population are LGBTQIA+ (ABS, 20242) and 27.6% of the population were born overseas, the biggest single group from England, Aotearoa (New Zealand) coming in fourth, but the rest of the top five were Asian nations (ABS, 2022). One in five Australians speak a language other than English at home (ABS, 2022). Our country is diverse, and the notion of who a “normal” Australian is is an outdated one. The best way to maintain relevance and market share is to make sure you aren’t communicating to your clients and customers that you don’t want their business by making it harder to do business with you than it should be and than your competitors do.
The flipside of this is that clients and customers from marginal and diverse backgrounds are so unused to being considered and accommodated that they are often grateful and become loyal to companies that make even a small effort to ensure that they have a good experience. They will often discuss which businesses are “safe” and willing to make accommodations in online groups and if asked are often generous with feedback to assist in improving your business.
Beyond the financial and reputational benefits of being inclusive, I would boldly suggest that for most people making the choice to consciously put effort into inclusive practice aligns with prosocial values and reflects the good character of business owners. If you own a business you are in a position of power and leadership in your community and you can choose how you wish to employ that power.
If you would like some assistance with improving the accessibility of your business, please reach out via the contact form on this website. I would love to work with you to build on the work you have already done.
ABS 2022 - https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/people-and-communities/cultural-diversity-census/2021
