Amplifying audience engagement through Inclusive Design
The Story
Women Deliver is a leading global advocate that champions gender equality and the health and rights of girls and women in all their intersecting identities. In preparing for the global conference for gender and reproductive rights, Women Deliver envisaged a transformative conference experience that transcended traditional boundaries. As the conference prepared to engage a diverse audience, including individuals with disabilities, Women Deliver recognized the power of inclusivity in fostering wider engagement. The organization embarked on a holistic endeavor, fusing accessibility, usability, and content strategy to redefine the conference’s digital landscape.
The Challenge
The challenge encompassed addressing a wider audience spectrum while ensuring every participant could engage meaningfully with the conference regardless of abilities. The Women Deliver Conference represents one of the largest multi-sectoral convenings to advance gender equality worldwide. The Women Deliver 2023 Conference and Global Dialogue are co-created by grassroots advocates, multilateral governments, the private sector, philanthropies, and youth, including from and representing communities facing systemic discrimination.
The objective of the website enhancement project was to create an inclusive online and offline experience with a focus on accessibility. For the online channel, the conference website would enable users to navigate seamlessly through the conference site. This holistic approach extended beyond the conference, encompassing pre-, during, and post-conference engagement.
The Strategy
Experience Dynamics’ holistic approach to content engagement moved Women Deliver’s conference site toward the goal of inclusivity. The site’s transformation resulted in enhanced accessibility, intuitive usability, and a content strategy that amplified engagement across the audience spectrum.
In addition to preparing the site, we provided guidelines for ongoing and continued inclusion work from Women Deliver content and technical teams.
The Turning Point
Experience Dynamics identified hundreds of access issues- that thankfully related to the same technical issue- making it easy to fix as well as steer away from in the future. With a rapid and comprehensive report on equity issues impacting accessibility, usability, and content, Women Deliver was able to prioritize and fix issues pre-launch. This pivotal action embodied Women Deliver’s commitment to facilitating access and ensuring that the conference’s resources resonated with all participants.
The Execution
- Immediate Site Enhancement: The conference site underwent a comprehensive accessibility and usability audit, addressing layout concerns and rectifying any broken elements. Collaborating with Women Deliver developers helped the team quickly address issues and barriers.
- Accessibility and Usability: The conference site’s issues covered both accessibility and usability. The litmus test was whether users, including those with disabilities using Assistive Technologies, could seamlessly access content and interact with key features.
- Content Strategy Refinement: Content strategy emerged as a pivotal aspect, ensuring that key information was easily discoverable and comprehensible. The focus extended to interactions, such as newsletter sign-ups and registrations, guaranteeing that every user could engage effortlessly.
In 2021, Women Deliver committed to making the Women Deliver 2023 Conference the most accessible and inclusive Women Deliver Conference to date. We are grateful to Experience Dynamics for their guidance and support in making that possible. – María Rendo, Senior Associate, Digital Communications
The Result
Women Deliver’s commitment to inclusive design helped align with the organization’s ethos of gender equality. By embracing accessibility, usability, and content strategy, the conference launch helped enable a cross-channel response to equitable access to conference resources. This case study underscores the power of inclusive design in transcending barriers, enabling wider engagement, and championing inclusion in digital and beyond.
“Experience Dynamics taught us how integrate new strategies and tools into our digital platforms and virtual convenings, breaking down barriers to participation in these important dialogues around gender equality. We will carry these lessons into our future work and continue to advocate for inclusive design!”–Gretchen Gasteier, Co-Head, Women Deliver 2023 Conference
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