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6 Participatory Writing
In this final three-part chapter, you’ll practice what we call participatory writing. According to Henry Jenkins, participatory cultures are places “with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices” (source).
Video: Henry Jenkins at TEDxNYED discussing participatory cultures
For our purposes, participatory writing involves composing, proposing, and presenting accessible arguments. Professional writers who are attuned to the importance of accessibility when writing for multiple publics are in high demand these days. Consider the following recent examples.
Supermarkets are finally figuring out that they need to engage in participatory design.
Consider, too, Rania’s discussion about the way certain fonts are inaccessible for some readers.
Rania, Federal Government
“One thing is, I wouldn’t do, like cursive scripts. I can’t remember what those are called. Like calligraphy. Whatever. Scripts, because people who have a learning disability, what’s that one called? The one where you might switch letters around?”
[Professor Teston: “Oh, yeah. Dyslexia.”]
“Dyslexia. Thank you. They have trouble reading that. I wouldn’t necessarily use the circle format on this. There’s spacing in between so if you are going to have one, there should be really big gaps between it so you can read it more easily.”
Fonts aren’t the only things that can sometimes be inaccessible to audiences. What do you know about screen readers? What do you know about closed captioning? What do you know about American sign language practices? This might seem like a lot to worry about when trying to compose a simple message. But if you truly want to reduce barriers associated with accessing your arguments, you must foreground accessibility. Participatory writing is an important ethical workplace writing practice.
Participatory, not necessarily universal
To reduce an organization’s liability associated with composing, proposing, and presenting arguments that are inaccessible, many organizations have embraced something called “universal design.” Universal design is also employed in learning spaces as an alternative to retrofitting arguments for particular audiences after the fact. Universal design asks writers to begin the composing process by considering varying needs and communicative practices.
Unfortunately, universal design can be used as a buzzword that makes organizations look like they care about different readers’ needs when in effect, they haven’t taken the time to be responsive to local needs.
In other words: by focusing on “universal” audiences, the needs and practices of local readers might be obfuscated. Our rhetorical response is to prioritize people’s needs and practices (even if they’re not a universally shared) over profit. One sure way to prioritize people’s needs and practices is to involve them in the actual design of the things we compose, propose, and present.
Participatory Writing Part I: Composing Accessible Arguments
Your instructor will provide you with guidance about how to design an accessible argument that promotes a cause or issue. Given that some media forms are less accessible than others to particular audiences, you should practice composing data, claims, and recommendations in ways that are sensitive to multiple publics’ communicative practices and needs.
Examples of composing accessible arguments
Consider the ways the Ad Council designs its arguments. For example, take a look at their Suicide Prevention campaign, which they call, “Seize the Awkward.” What do you notice about the rhetorical design decisions they made in an effort to design an accessible argument?
One method for detecting if and/or in what ways your argument might not be accessible to certain audiences is to conduct user experience testing. We’re all familiar with those awkward moments when we approach a door when exiting a building and, even though the door handle looks like you’re supposed to pull the door to open it, you’re actually supposed to push the door open. Testing the door handle design with actual users may have helped designers to detect the in-the-moment assumptions and practices everyday users bring to the seemingly mundane task of door-opening. The same can be said for the messages we design, especially messages that are more ambient in nature.
Unlike print-based or spreadable media, ambient media are persuasive even if audience members are passively engaged. In order to maximize ambient media’s communicative potential, designers must privilege external or environmental contributors to a rhetorical situation. In other words, you should be mindful of the ways time, space, emplacement, materials, external objects and activities may interact with your message in a way that alters how a viewer perceives or understands it.
Think about how before a movie plays in a theatre, there are the occasional creatively-designed, 30-second shorts encouraging audience members not to use their phones during the movie. You didn’t come to the movie to see that clever short. You might still be getting seated or situating your popcorn bucket. Nevertheless, that message is designed in such a way that it should have an effect on you. Even if you’re passively engaged, there’s something interesting or compelling about the way the designers of that persuasive message created the 30-second short. It might make you laugh or sigh, but by the end, you reach for your phone to turn off notifications.
As you create your own media, keep in mind that your goal is to leverage the affordances of specific technologies to persuade audiences to do, think, or believe something—even if they’re passively engaged. Do this in a way that foregrounds the accessibility of your argument.
Tactical Questions
How can your team design media in a way that is sensitive to your audience’s unique access needs (visual, aural, sensory, spatial, etc.)?
What barriers, institutions, and/or structures make it difficult for your team to design media in a way that is more inclusive than it is exclusive?
What are the consequences of failing to design your media in a way that is sensitive to certain audience’s access needs?
Participatory Writing Part II: Proposing Accessible Arguments
Now that you’ve had some experience with composing accessible arguments, consider transferring some of those experiences into proposing accessible arguments.
Part of your proposal should include explicit instructions designed for your reader so that they know how to execute the content of your plan. Before you start working on those instructions, you’ll need to reflect on how best to compose the components of those instructions so that they are sensitive to multiple publics’ practices and needs. “How to write work instructions” is a great resource for thinking about those components. Each part of your marketing proposal ought to be parsed for readers of your instructions so that they know in what order to execute things and/or which tasks need to be repeated.
Be sure that as you’re designing your instructions you consider different readers’ needs and expectations. For example, how might a CEO, board member, or other major decision-makers in an organization perceive, read, and execute your instructions? How would a volunteer at the organization perceive, read, and execute your instructions? How would a government agency in charge of auditing the organization perceive, read, and execute your instructions? Consider these various needs and expectations as you design accessible instructions for executing your marketing plan.
Tactical Questions
How can your team mobilize the genre conventions of instructions and marketing proposals so that it’s clear that you prioritize your readers’ time and reading practices?
What are the consequences (for your team, the organization, etc.) of failing to make recommendations in a way that is sensitive to readers’ time and reading practices?
What barriers, institutions, and/or structures might make it difficult for your team to persuade readers to adopt your proposal, while also ensuring that the facts, data, and evidence you’re mobilizing toward that end are accurate and attributable to their authors?
Participatory Writing Part III: Presenting Accessible Arguments
Now that you have more experience with proposing accessible arguments, let’s extend those skills a bit further by presenting your accessible argument. Your instructor will provide you with details about how to design a slide deck and pitch your marketing proposal. You should aim to accomplish this work so that your final pitch and accompanying slides are sensitive to multiple audiences’ communicative practices and needs. We encourage you to consult the “composing access” website for guidelines on how to design slides, handouts, and other strategies for presenting accessible arguments. Smashing Magazine also recently featured a great set of tips for inclusive design during presentations.
Tactical Questions
How can your team mobilize the genre conventions of a marketing pitch and accompanying slideware so that it’s clear that you value your audiences’ embodied needs and expectations?
What are the consequences of failing to anticipate certain audience members’ needs and expectations?
What barriers, institutions, and/or structures might make it difficult for your team to prepare its pitch and slideware? What tactics does your team need to take to ensure that your presentation is accessible? What tactics does your team need to take in order to persuade audience members not just to adopt your proposal, but also that the facts, data, and evidence you’re mobilizing toward that end are accurate and attributable to their authors?
definition
Designing a product, research study, document, or prototype with participation and direct input from all stakeholders involved – employees, communities, users, and anyone else who is affected or involved in the design process. Solving a problem with those that design is meant to help, not for them, in other words.
The degree to which multiple users with a wide range of abilities and expertise can access something (e.g. a document, a mobile application, etc.)
An approach to the design of spaces, products, and project workflow or organization that prioritizes accessibility for all possible individuals. Proactive, rather than reactive or accommodating to disability, this approach aims to eliminate barriers to access at the core of design.
Extra-textual contributors to a rhetorical situation. When you walk into some clothing stores, for example, there may be a strong signature scent in the air. That scent is part of the clothing store’s attempt at persuading you to identify its clothing with a particular smell, feel, and way of being. That scent is a kind of ambient rhetoric.
