Summary: Getting started with disability inclusion

Who it helps: People with permanent disabilities

Additional benefits: People with temporary or situational disabilities; Improved reach and customer experience 

Happy New Year! We are kicking off 2026 with a rework of our tip of the week. Each month we will explore a new topic in disability inclusion and accessibility. Each week we will provide you with a short tip to help you improve your efforts to be accessible. January’s topic is an introduction to disability inclusion. 

As a reminder, each tip is designed to be completed in a week. Over time, completing tips will help expand your audience and reach. Disability inclusion is a journey. Celebrate every step forward.  This week, we focus on getting 2026 moving in the right direction.

Step 1: A quick reminder

People with disabilities are the largest minority and the most wide ranging. Anyone can join at any time. When you work to include people with disabilities, you also improve your organization’s: 

• overall reach,

• marketing effectiveness,

• search engine optimization, and 

• messaging and branding. 

Disabilities may be visible (a wheelchair user) or hidden (a person with a brain injury). They can be permanent (a Deaf individual) or temporary (someone who has a broken wrist). Even people with situational or temporary disabilities benefit from disability inclusion practices. For example, people pushing a cart benefit from curb cuts, people using a mobile phone outside benefit from higher contrast, and people driving benefit from voice interaction. 

Disability inclusion includes:

• Accommodations - adjustments that a person or organization makes to help include a single person with a disability.

• Physical accessibility - ensures that people with disabilities can successfully enter, navigate, and use your organization’s facilities.

• Digital accessibility - ensures that people with disabilities can successfully use your digital content.

• ​​Content accessibility - ensures that people with disabilities can perceive and understand the digital and physical content and materials you provide. 

• Event accessibility - ensures that people with disabilities can attend and participate in meetings, workshops, presentations, fairs, and more.

To learn more read Introduction to Disability Inclusion

Step 2:  Raise your awareness

Think about a time when you were unable to accomplish something because of a mismatch between your abilities and your environment. For example, were you:

• Unable to reach something on a tall shelf? 

• Unable to hear something because of background noise? 

• Unable to see something because of glare?

• Unable to open a door with something because your hands were full?

These are examples of situational disabilities.

Did you receive some assistance in solving the barrier this situation presented such as:

• A grabber reacher tool to let you pick up the object or a taller person to reach it for you.

• Captions or a transcript that let you read the audio content.

• Increasing the contrast to allow you to read the content.

• An automated door opener or a polite person to help open the door.

These are all examples of accessibility and accommodations.

How did you feel when you were able to overcome the barrier? How did you feel when you could not? 

Step 3: Consider your organization

Think about and ask yourself one or more of the following questions:

• When was the last time someone with a disability engaged with your organization?

• How do your current partners, customers, or employees with disabilities engage with your organization?

• What are you currently doing to remove or help people overcome barriers caused by disabilities?

• What do you want to know more about for including people with disabilities?