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Guardians of Inclusion: empathy in action
Introduce the Institute initiative and facilitate a conversation about people, barriers, and leadership responsibility.
Starter draft for review. Use as a conversation or planning aid.
An ACLT Institute initiative
Guardians of Inclusion brings superheroes of accessibility into learning and communication. Its focus is empathy and inclusive technology: helping people see the human experience behind a barrier and the decisions that can remove it.
A 15-minute team conversation
- Choose a barrier: use a real, de-identified example from your team's work, such as a keyboard trap, unreadable document, missing caption, or task that times out.
- Describe the impact: ask what the person is trying to achieve and how the design interrupts that goal. Avoid reducing anyone to their disability.
- Trace the decisions: identify which priorities, handoffs, or assumptions allowed the barrier to persist.
- Choose an action: agree one prevention step and the person or team responsible for it.
Prompts for reflection
- What does this experience reveal about our working culture?
- What would we change if access were a normal part of this decision?
- Who should be part of the conversation before the next release?
Facilitation note: invite the voices of disabled people directly, support their access needs, and recognize their expertise. A story is a starting point for learning, not a substitute for participation.
Additional character materials and learning resources are planned as the initiative develops.