Over the past few weeks, I've published one email each Wednesday to help you lead an effective accessibility workshop. My aim was to give you the tools I use and the principles I try to follow to help product teams better understand accessibility and how it fits in their existing development lifecycle.
I've gone over:
- who the right stakeholders are
- advice on dealing with trouble makers
- maintaining energy and focus
- ice breakers and closers
- what the facilitator needs to do
- recording the workshop summary
- what tools you need
- and common pitfalls to avoid
You can always go back and read any of these as you need to.
The truth is, nowadays I rarely run in-person workshops any more. Most of the time, I facilitate remote workshops. Although, not that different in terms of the structure and exercises, remote workshops bring their own set of challenges.
Some key differences between in-person and remote workshops are:
- The way everyone interacts. In-person allows for natural body language and spontaneous conversations. Remote is more limited.
- The tools we use are completely different. In-person involves physical space and materials. Remote relies on technology and digital tools.
- How you manage the energy. In-person workshops often have a tangible energy. Remote workshops require extra effort to maintain enthusiasm and focus.
I'd like to focus on remote workshops only for the next few Wednesday emails.