A brief note on conflicting needs

The post that’ll come out soon is not accompanied by a voiceover. I’m managing sternum pain - making it painful to talk at length. However, as a Dyslexic person, I know it helps to have the option to listen to texts. I would much prefer to provide a podcast, as I know that screen readers both aren’t always available or accurate in communicating tone.

This is an example of where access needs conflict - within one person, and certainly between people. This experience has been reminding me of the work of Disability Justice activists and scholars who teach us that access needs can clash or contradict.

This isn’t an excuse not to aim for greater accessibly. Instead, we can strive towards an expanded view of accessibility (that moves beyond the legal basics). We can increase our attention to where clashing needs arise and designing this into our work, as much as possible. It also means challenging scarcity.

I hope that for this post, screen readers will provide some level of accessibility. But please let me know if you’d require or prefer a recording as it may be possible at a later date.

An article for more thinking on contradicting needs: theunwritten.co.uk/2022/07/14/fully-acc…