Accessible or Accessible

“England and America: separated by a common language.”
— George Bernard Shaw (via Eddie Izzard)

To our list of Slippery Words of Our Field — program, development — let’s add “accessible”.

All of its different meanings are vital to what we all do. But there are lots of meanings. Meaning, we don’t understand each other. And we don’t realize it.

When we say “accessible”, do we mean that we are easy to get to? (Location)

That we are affordable? (Price)

That we have no physical barriers to visitors with different abilities? (Facilities)

That we are approachable, and not off-putting? (Messaging)

That our programs — ahem — are understandable to a general audience? (Content)

At this point, we’re all cleverly answering, “Yes!”

Nicely done.

But usually, people don’t mean all those definitions when they use the word. So are we talking about our location? Price? Facilities? Messaging? Content?

Because each of those things is the responsibility of a different department of the institution. Are they all listening?

Here’s the thing:
All of the definitions of “accessible” are important. We just have to make sure which one we mean. Or we won’t make anything … accessible.

Warmly,
Jonathan