DUP TIG Week: DUP Week: Inclusive Evaluation Design – Low Physical Effort by June Gothberg and Caitlyn Bukaty

Welcome to Day 6 of Inclusive Evaluation Design hosted by the Disabilities and Underrepresented Populations TIG. We are June Gothberg and Caitlyn Bukaty, the chairs of the TIG. In her presentation, Vale Querini (2020) shared that “products and services that are not built with inclusion in mind result in various forms of discrimination and exclusion” including:

• Denied access
• Identity-diminishing experiences
• Frustration
• Unwanted exposure to sensitive information
• Reinforcement of stereotypes

When thinking about inclusive evaluation design, it is important to consider the barriers to participation and the opportunities for removing the barriers. A good first step is know what types of barriers might exist:

Types of Barriers

• Space
• Physical Effort
• Time
• Emotional Labor

How Can we work to improve upon barriers? 

Strive to make stakeholder experiences

• Responsive
• Simple
• Clear and relevant
• Tolerant

Today, we share information on Universal Design for Evaluation Principle 6: Low Physical Effort.

Hot Tips

• When planning evaluation tasks from planning meetings to participant involvement to dissemination efforts, it is important that the design can be used efficiently and comfortably and with a minimum of fatigue.
• In-person events should
  • minimize sustained physical effort including the effort to arrive at the site
  • minimizes repetitive actions
  • allow participants choice and options to maintaining their body position, e.g., giving participants an option to stand rather than sit
• Virtual events should
  • minimize the length of time in front of a screen
  • allow for closed captioning
  • keep dynamic space usage in mind through all states of onscreen keyboards, dropdown menus, etc. to avoid causing the user to block their screen
• Both should
  • embed frequent of breaks (e.g., use a timer, think about using Pomodoro methods)
  • allow for hydration

Rad Resources

• Zoom offers some of the best accessibility features and claims to meet WCAG 2.1 AA Standards, Revised Section 508 Standards, and EN 301 549 Accessibility requirements. It includes:
  • Focus mode
  • Dark mode
  • Screen reader support
  • Closed captioning
  • Resizing font in closed captioning and chat
  • See full list at Zoom Accessibility https://explore.zoom.us/en/accessibility/

• Vale Querini’s YouTube presentation on inclusive practices in virtual settings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9HBS79a_vI

•  Universal Design for Evaluation Checklist (5^th Ed) Principle 6 Low Physical Effort – this research-based checklist was developed specifically for evaluators by the DUP TIG at AEA to assist evaluators in designing inclusive evaluations.

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The American Evaluation Association is hosting the Disabilities & Underrepresented Populations TIG (DUP) Week. The contributions all week come from DUP members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org . AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.