Welcome to a lantern-lit space of access, creativity, and co-care.
This repository holds living resources designed to support inclusive communication across abilities — especially for blind, deaf, hard-of-hearing, neurodivergent, and community-rooted collaborators.
These materials were born from the inside.
As someone who is hard of hearing and neurodiverse, my earliest guides focused on communication accessibility for conversations, meetings, and creative workspaces. Initially created for in-person gatherings, they offered practical tools and affirming language for clearer, kinder collaboration.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, online spaces opened up new possibilities for cross-disability connection — and my guides began to evolve. Collaborating with other disabled creatives, we shaped tools grounded in interdependence, sensory care, anti-stigma language, and shared access culture.
When the director of my UBC Behavioural Insight Foundation course asked for my communication guide — after noticing it in my email signature — I understood how these resources could travel beyond disability circles. They belong to anyone cultivating dignity in how we meet, create, and collaborate.
- accessibility_rider.md – accessibility rider for workshops and ### 📝 Written Guides
- accessibility_rider.md – access rider for workshops and mixed-modality gatherings
- etiquette_guide.md – inclusive communication practices (online and creative)
- quick_tip_sheet.md – 1-page accessibility checklist for facilitators and organizers
- facilitation_self_reminder.md – self-reminder for hard of hearing facilitators leading access-centered spaces
- Service & Guide Dog Welcome Poster – signage welcoming service and guide dogs
visual_banner.png– lantern motif symbolizing interdependent access
- access_centered_ux_scorecard.md – lightweight UX evaluation scorecard for public service teams (coming soon)
README.md– this file
If you'd like to download or print any guide (like accessibility_rider.md) as a PDF, here are a few options:
- Open the Markdown file on GitHub or a preview tool (e.g. Dillinger)
- Press Ctrl + P (Windows) or Cmd + P (Mac) to open print settings
- Select “Save as PDF”
- Choose layout settings and click Save
- Install Typora
- Open the
.mdfile - Go to File → Export → PDF
- Choose your format and export
Use pandoc in your terminal or command line:
pandoc accessibility_rider.md -o accessibility_rider.pdf- Feel free to cite, adapt, or remix these guides with credit
- Share in onboarding packets, workshop folders, community toolkits, or artist residencies
- Contributions and feedback are welcome via issues or pull requests
Access is communal, evolving, and ever-lit — like flame passed hand to hand.
Thank you for carrying it forward.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
You may:
- 🪞 Share and adapt these materials for non-commercial use
- ✍️ Credit the author and link to this repository
- 🔁 Use the same license for derivative works
Access is collective, and credit honors the path.
If you'd like to cite this resource in your project, paper, or toolkit, please use one of the following formats:
Chou, A. K. (2025). Accessibility Resources: Inclusive Communication & Creative Access [GitHub repository]. https://github.com/AnnChou/creative-access-guide
Chou, Ann K. "Accessibility Resources: Inclusive Communication & Creative Access." GitHub, 2025, https://github.com/AnnChou/creative-access-guide.
Chou, Ann K. (2025). Accessibility Resources: Inclusive Communication & Creative Access. GitHub Repository. Retrieved from: https://github.com/AnnChou/creative-access-guide
🕯️ Feel free to adapt these citations to match your style guide or medium.
Credit sustains the path of access and care.
I welcome respectful collaboration — especially grounded in lived experience and creative insight.
- 📥 Open an issue with feedback, additions, or ideas
- 📤 Submit pull requests for improvements or new formats (e.g. screen-reader optimized, tactile, translated)
- 🌍 Interested in adapting for a different modality or culture? I’d love to support that process
All contributions must reflect the values of dignity, access, and interdependence. Harmful or extractive edits will be closed.
Created during my WorkAble internship, this visual sign affirms that service and guide dogs are not only legally permitted, but culturally embraced in creative and collaborative spaces.
Alt-text:
Illustration of a guide dog in harness accompanying a gender-neutral person as they approach the entrance of a warmly lit art space. Text reads: “Service & Guide Dogs Welcome Here — Everyone deserves access." 🖨️ This poster is print-friendly and can be shared digitally or used as signage at events, workshops, and studios. It signals that access and dignity walk beside us.
The expanded rider used by our cross-disability working group also includes:
- 🍵 Planned break times to honor sensory pacing, caregiving, and fatigue
- 🧘 Language guidelines to reduce stigma and ableist framing
- 🤝 Affirmation of support via assistants or care partners
- 🌍 Respect for shifting communication modes — text, gesture, silence, visual, tactile
This public guide reflects those values, with space to grow.
A developing resource for public sector and service design teams aiming to evaluate user experience through an accessibility lens — especially when direct user testing is limited.
Designed by Ann K. Chou, this scorecard blends:
- Behavioral insight frameworks
- Inclusive design literature
- Equity-centered UX prompts
- Five structured tabs for:
- Dimensions of access
- Interpretive grading scale
- Persona-grounded reflection
- Comprehension and emotional burden metrics
- Notes for iteration and internal dialog
This tool helps teams internalize access as a quality, not a checkbox — and invites thoughtful UX evaluation across inclusive dimensions.
Alt-text: Screenshot of the Access-Centered UX Scorecard spreadsheet (v0.7b) showing UX dimension rows, evaluation prompts, grading scale, and audience mapping column.
→ Explore the Access-Centered UX Scorecard (v0.7b)
A lightweight, heuristic-based tool for evaluating accessibility and experience in public-facing digital services.
Includes audience mapping, interpretive grading, and inclusive UX prompts designed for non-user-testing environments.
🗂️ View the UX Scorecard Overview
Want to co-develop or test the scorecard in your context? Feel free to reach out or open an issue. Contributions rooted in lived experience and public service are especially welcome.
These resources began in shared silence and steady listening —
shaped through lantern-lit collaboration across disabled creatives during the pandemic.They aren’t policies — they’re poems of care.
Access is not a checklist — it’s a commitment.May this repository be a quiet companion for those building new worlds
where everyone arrives whole.
With ink, rhythm, and lantern light,
Ann K. Chou
@annreflection
annchou.github.io
Interdisciplinary designer and informatics researcher exploring how care, creativity, and computation intersect. I work with HL7 FHIR, D3.js, and Unity to prototype inclusive systems—from ePROMS portals to sumi-e inspired art tools and virtual instruments for sensory play.
🌿 Health IT · Creative Tech · Accessibility 🎨 Sumi-e x Unity | Virtual Music Keyboard | Data Vis & Reasoning 📍 Based in BC · annchou.github.io