Transcription

WENDIE: Yes, that is a couple yes right.  I will put everything down, who has been here before about the speak from Graham.  I know there was a speak about accessibility in all the rooms but for those of you who weren’t here, I will tell you what you missed.  First of all the Lego website is great.  (LAUGHTER), in every way.  It is accessible, it is fun.  The colours are great, it is great.

What Graham told us was about design and accessibility which was great because before that we had Tammie talk about user experience, right now we have got Alice on stage and she is going to tell us about tone of voice which is, I think, with accessibility and user experience getting better and better for all of the users.  This is going to be a workshop that is why you got the brief.  I am very excited.  I am very looking forward to what we are going to do.  Are you ready?

ALICE STILL: I think so yes.

WENDIE: Put your hands together for Alice Still.

ALICE STILL: Hello everyone.  So hopefully you have all got a brief.  You probably won’t need a pen but if you want to make notes then there are some spare pens in the box up here.  So feel free to wander up.

So, thank you for having me today.  This is a bit of a, a new format that we are trying out, we will see how it goes, but unusual to do a workshop in this way, but hopefully it will work out.  This is all about making your website more inclusive using tone.

A background, I run a company called Unramble, we do content strategy for WordPress websites I plan and manage website content.  Cofounder of a new e-mail marketing tool called superscribe, along with Elliott who is there taking a photo, I am the lead organiser of … and organiser of our local meetups as well.  Today I want to pass on the things I have learned about being more inclusive through the words on your website.  You should all have a brief as I said, so feel free to check that out.  I will stop at various stages if you like, have a bit more of a dig in that.  Once I give a background of how and why to be inclusive with your tone of voice, we will get stuck into making a page on the WordCamp Brighton new website, why would you want to be inclusive?

Being inclusive offers people a sense of belonging, this is especially important in situations they wouldn’t usually feel comfortable in.  So perhaps the type of product you sell is traditionally seen as something that is very technical and difficult to understand for someone who is not technical or maybe organise an event perhaps and it seen to be predominantly attended by a specific ethnic group, so being inclusive is about removing the barriers to entry and encouraging people that what you have is also or what you do for also them.  If we are not inclusive, diversity doesn’t persist, whether that is amongst your target audience or at your events or in work force if you are in in room.  I am guessing you are more interested in being incredibly collusive.  Diversity feels like it is the right thing to do.

The other thing is though, that aside from giving you good karma being inclusive and therefore increasing your audience diversity, is materially beneficial.  So studies have shown that diversity promotes economic growth in terms of your website audience basically, if you are more inclusive, you have got more potential for more profit.  Okay so what we are going to do today, is encourage our target audience this is the target audience of WordCamp Brighton and today this is your target audience, we will encourage them to speak at WordCamp Brighton 2017 which is happening this August.  To do this we will need to know who our target audience are.  So if you can now have a look at your brief, and go to page 3.  This is a cut down version of our user personas, these are the people that we are aiming to encourage to come to WordCamp these aren’t real people.  They are sort of some of them maybe based on some real people.  But, they are basically taken from like facts, so age, education level, professional background, needs, interests, goals on the website, any expectations or assumptions that we think they might have about WordCamp.  Where else they go for information, when and how they are accessing the device, devices they use, goals and motivations in life.  So it is quite in-depth look at individuals as people as oppose to like factual things when you actually look at these user personas in front of you, so it is more about their personality as oppose to just facts and statistics.

If we really get to know them, we are more likely to be able to encourage them and speak at WordCamp.

So I would like you to focus on how we can help these people feel included and how we can encourage them to apply.  I am going the give you like a minute to read through and really help to get to know these people.

Feel free to talk about them as well.

Okay so, has everyone kind of got acquainted with our users they might sound familiar, some of them may not sound familiar, what we need to do is to step out of our own heads and into the heads of these people.  We are becoming them, what we are writing is for them, to encourage them to come and join us.

So, you are all here taking part in a WordCamp in some ways you are the target audience, because we wanted it to be more inclusive, for simply writing for ourselves, that is probably not going to happen.  You alone don’t represent your entire audience.  What appeals or feels normal to you, won’t necessarily appeal to someone else and if we get wrapped up in marketing just to ourselves, we risk excluding other people.

So to prevent this kind of self-marketing one of the tools we can use to make our website more inclusive is our tone of voice.  Your websites tone of voice signals to your audience if what you have is also for them.  So, this is just one definition of it, it is quite just one I made out.  But basically, every time you interact with people through your website, on social media, face to face, your tone affects how you come across, manifests itself in everything, from your word choice to use of punctuation and now I would even consider things like emojis and gif’s part of your tone of voice, with WordCamp we have use of emojis on twitter and it adds to what we want to sound like and what we think will make our audience feel comfortable and want to get involved in the brand effectively, is that WordCamp Brighton.

So your tone of voice is in practice the difference between the copy on these 3 buttons.  It bridges the gap between you and your audience and by deeply understanding your audience you can create a tone of voice that relates to and connect with.

But, people are complicated and making them feel in a certain way specifically included could seem like a pretty difficult thing to do.  But hopefully what you will see today is that you can make a very big difference in how people feel by just changing a few very small things.  But I will talk about the small things in a moment.  If you want to look at the tone of voice we have got for WordCamp Brighton, it is what we want to sound like, but not all the way to being inclusive because we are not there yet, we haven’t got that stage.  So any suggestions for improvements would be amazing.  This is on page 5 of the brief.  So if you have a read through that.  Basically what we sound like.  Starts with a bit of a summary then goes into the detail on the personality of WordCamp Brighton.  How to sound like that.

I found a typo.

So basically whenever you read something on the WordCamp Brighton website it should sound relaxed, cheerful we want to make it more inclusive.  So, to do that we want to pay attention to some small things and the first small thing relates to our audience.  What we are going to do today is avoid stereotyping our audience because this is one of the biggest mistakes and this is how you cut out a lot of your audience and basically be really noninclusive.

The second is relating to us, so how we talk about ourselves and we are going the avoid putting too much focus on ourselves and talking all about WordCamp and not really paying attention to our audience.

In the last thing, and if there is anything you take away from this talk, is this button here.  I don’t think it belongs on any website ever.  But the final small thing is, yes, word choice, we will avoid words with uncomfortable synonyms like submit.

I mentioned we were going the write a page for WordCamp Brighton, the purpose of the page to encourage people from a diverse background to apply to speak at WordCamp Brighton.  We will genuinely use the website page, all your input will be helpful.  User testing plus crowd sourcing, plus a quiz, so yes it is going to be successful to the success of our speaker applications this year.

So the brief, I will quickly go through the brief again, hopefully you have got to terms with it.  But the start is the goals so that is our business, you type goals if you are a business.  In terms of WordCamp Brighton we are doing it for a community, so there is no, we are not here to make money off of it.  But we want to increase diversity, that is our main goal this year, so hopefully that comes across in that.

Then, after that, there is our core value, so this is just what we believe in and what we do, so that is accessibility, diversity and community.

Just a brief description of what they mean.

Then your user persona, so the people we are marketing to.  The tone of voice guide.  So we discussed.

Then over on page 7 there is some key things we need to include on this page.  This is like the factual stuff that has to be on the website page.  So that includes how people can apply.  I am definitely open to discussion on this, last year we had multiple ways to apply, so this was by form, like the usual form via a video or via a drawing or a sketch.  So if anyone has got any other ideas for applications or how to frame that, that will be cool, we will come to that later in the quiz.  We will obviously include the closing date for applications, what to expect for speakers and who we are looking for to speak.  That is the key everyone basically, anyone with an interest in web press.  What type of talks we are looking for, everything WordPress related.  The fact that there is free tickets for speakers and some other, travel accommodation and then just the details on the submission form.  So again, we are open to discussion about what it is that we should be including on that form.  How to edit as well.

Cool.  So, hopefully, I can open the page, this is like the draft page and I have purposefully made it boring and not inclusive.  This is also what you have got on your brief on page 8 this is visually what it looks like at the moment, or what it will look like.  Pretty standard thing, the H1, then the intro paragraph, trying to draw people in.

Then after that, some information and a nice call to action button to make people go down to the form at the bottom and then just yes, more information and then the form itself.

Then the dreaded submit button.  Okay so.

Now, it is time for hopefully  — the quiz.  The inaugural inclusive website page quiz.  If you go to page ten, there is a bit of an intro, about this, trying to figure out a way for a room of people to write all at the same time was tricky, so basically written it for you, you can choose out of the options or suggest other solutions.

So I have prepared some ideas and some of them aren’t inclusive at all.  Some of them are pretty good.  But I want you the feel free to like suggest your own ideas on how we can improve them.

You can do that either here if you feel comfortable doing that or e-mail us later and I have got the e-mail address in the brief.

WENDIE: You want us to do it now?

ALICE STILL: Show of hands for each.

WENDIE: You are going to ask the question?

ALICE STILL: Yes, I will ask the question, Tammie is going to take a number because we figured like the one that get it is most vote the best or the most inclusive then we will ask the people why that is the best to use, basically what you are looking for is what fits with the tone of voice but also more inclusive in what we are currently doing for our page.  So question one out of the page titles, which do you prefer?

We’ve got A, call for speakers which is the current one, we’ve got B apply to speak at WordCamp Brighton, C, call for WordCamp Brighton speakers #WCBTN or, D, none of the above.  Who is for A?  One.  Why do you reckon A?

FROM THE FLOOR: The simplest {inaudible} job interview – I don’t know what it means so it’s clear (not using microphone)

ALICE STILL: Who reckons, B, apply to speak at WordCamp Brighton?  Keep your hands up.  Would someone like to volunteer why they thought that one?

FROM THE FLOOR: It has a call to action right in the title.  That’s good marketing.

WENDIE: Can I just ask one thing, if someone – if you reply please would you stand up so we can see who is going to reply? Thank you.

ALICE STILL: And C, call for WordCamp Brighton speakers #WCBTN.  2.  And D, none of the above.  Yes, I reckon that as well.  So who reckons none of the above?  Again.  Who would like to offer why?

FROM THE FLOOR: I think you could be friendlier and more conversational.

FROM THE FLOOR: I don’t like the word “speakers”.

ALICE STILL: Interesting.  What would you prefer to speakers then?

FROM THE FLOOR: Speakers sounds scary and – I don’t know – participant?  I would like to participate.

ALICE STILL: So we could come up with a better word than speakers.  I can’t off the top of my head but I’m sure we can.  Cool.  I was thinking somewhere between like maybe B and C. I think with D it’s exclusionary because of that hashtag and anyone who doesn’t use Twitter is out and yes apply to speak it is a {inaudible} but a little bit forceful perhaps and if we’re encouraging people who wouldn’t usually apply to speak maybe that means we need to change our –

WENDIE: Do you take questions because I see some hands raised, questions or remarks?

FROM THE FLOOR: Just an idea, maybe some talk at WordCamp Brighton may be less threatening.

FROM THE FLOOR: Simpler.

FROM THE FLOOR: Yes, along those lines as well but something with – passionate about WordPress, come talk.

ALICE STILL: Yes.  Okay. So shall we move on to the next question?  Which introductory paragraph is best?

So, the one that is there already I think it is A, the Brighton WordPress community are putting on an amazing conference this summer and we’re now opening applications for speakers.  Who reckons that one?  Cool.  Agree.  Zero.  So, B is: this summer the Brighton WordPress community presents WordCamp Brighton 2017.  It will be an amazing conference and we’d love you to apply to speak.

Two, yes? Why do you reckon that one?

FROM THE FLOOR: It’s along the lines of values.

ALICE STILL: Yes.  Okay.  And then C, this summer the Brighton WordPress community presents WordPress Brighton 2017.  We’re inviting everyone with an interest in WordPress to apply to speak. And D, none of the above.  Cool.  Yes it’s a tricky one.  I can see why.  Like I think again I think we’ve got this apply to speak is a bit off-putting, isn’t it?

FROM THE FLOOR: Just thinking about using the word “contributions” – contributor – call to contribute.  People with an interest in WordPress to apply to contribute which might make it more accessible to people, not to speak but to get involved or if they might be tempted to speak after you get engaged with them.

ALICE STILL: Yes, maybe that phrase “get involved”.  I guess the rest we have for sign up to contribution mix that with contribution day.

FROM THE FLOOR: Share your views.

[Technical issue]

FROM THE FLOOR: That A and B, what makes it a conference?

ALICE STILL: It has got speakers I guess.

Conference, delegates.

FROM THE FLOOR: What makes it amazing?

FROM THE FLOOR: Careful!

FROM THE FLOOR: Haven’t got the speakers yet you don’t know.

ALICE STILL: I think that is it, also I think calling it amazing maybe is a bit off putting to people who wouldn’t usually speak, you would have to say this is an amazing speaker to make them speak.  Which is a quite scary concept.

FROM THE FLOOR: Thinking along the lines of, we have some amazing speakers,  — we have speakers and would love you to be one which draws people into the crowd.

ALICE STILL: Talk about good speakers l year and.

FROM THE FLOOR: This summer WordPress Community presents WordPress Brighton  — this year we … would love you the join us.  It draws them in.

ALICE STILL: Okay, if we move on to the headers, the main information that we want to talk about on this page.

This is a bit of a tricky one because you know, it is a wording of that and then there is the arrangement of it on the page but, if you have a look at A, B and C, do you think any of those are preferable?

ALICE STILL: Who reckons (a), … tickets for speakers, WordCamp Brighton talks what I need to prepare, call to action form?

Nobody?

What about B?  One yes?

So why do you reckon that one?

FROM THE FLOOR: Precise enough, enough points for the speakers to know what are the steps?

ALICE STILL: Yes.

FROM THE FLOOR: So the first one was closed but it has this format of work at Brighton talks.  So number could be just have it talk format.

The third option had different things.

ALICE STILL: Anyone else notice that, so the only thing of that is the format of Brighton talks, it is a quite a vague header, you don’t know what that means.

So I personally think B as well, so that is interesting, what about C?  Anyone think C?

Yes.

That is because you wrote those initially, do you recognise them?

NEW SPEAKER: No?

ALICE STILL: Yes, the very first version of this page.

FROM THE FLOOR: I wrote it?

(LAUGHTER).

ALICE STILL: You passed the test, short as to include all the information, perhaps already someone who spoken at WordCamp might associate with why reckon that one?

C?  And the actual titles.

FROM THE FLOOR: I liked about that, although obviously the titles are incredible well written! (LAUGHTER).  U I just thought having the apply at the bottom was important, you don’t want people to apply without understanding what they are getting themselves in for.

The ones at the top.  Think about the conference first.

ALICE STILL: And does anyone think none of the above?

Loads of people.  Yes.

Does anyone want to say why?  Or have any suggestions to improve it?

FROM THE FLOOR: I guess the main thing, what are the main barriers that stop people from wanting to apply and addressing those.  I think C has the close e, don’t want to speak about that sort of question, but if we want to be focusing on inclusivity we should be focusing oning breaking down barriers.

ALICE STILL: If you look at the page there, this is something we considered doing and in last year’s one, and including specific ideas and like different headers in this one we have got like a range of examples of development talks or you know, marketing talks.  I think that those ones I have put in there generalised perhaps if we get a bit more, I don’t know specific on talk topic or just frame it differently?  Do you think that might work?

NEW SPEAKER: Was also things like transport or accessibility or child care, that kind of thing might come at that stage maybe?

ALICE STILL: Yes, cool.

FROM THE FLOOR: Said something about why it is important that people who have never spoken before are invited to speak.

ALICE STILL: Say specifically about that yes?

Yes.

Cool.  Okay.

FROM THE FLOOR: Can I add something.  I was a first time speaker today and so, I think you read this page differently if you have been speaking before.  Or if you have been to Brighton or WordCamp or if you are just blue on any aspect and I think if you’ve done it before you don’t want to go through all that again.  You just want to hit apply.  So make it accessible for new or sort of frame the information for new and regulars maybe.

ALICE STILL: So that’s about aiming it at other people because we know a few have applied before you’re more likely to apply again whereas whenever you apply to speak you’re the people who we should really be trying to encourage so good point.

Okay question 4.  What call to action copy will best encourage people to fill out an application form?  So I’m talking about the one that’s near the top of the page that will take you down to the app form so this is for perhaps like someone that has been to the page already, just a general more encouraging thing to get them to actually fill out that form.  So would you go for apply to speak, go to form, apply now or none of the above?  Who is A?

FROM THE FLOOR: Someone said earlier about join us.

ALICE STILL: Join us, yes.

FROM THE FLOOR: What about something like next step?  Or next steps?

ALICE STILL: Yes.  Is that too vague?  Because the thing is when you look at the page it’s quite a stand out button.  It’s almost like the first thing you see when you look at that page so if using next steps is it too vague?

FROM THE FLOOR: Could be right.

ALICE STILL: Does anyone think apply to speak, just facts?  Yes?  Yes.  Why do you reckon?

FROM THE FLOOR: Hello.  One, as you said, it stands out from the page so apply to speak it’s unambiguous but 2, it’s also good if you have a screen reader, if you have a button that says apply people might not know what the button is for, so that’s 2 reasons.

ALICE STILL: Yay, accessibility.  Okay. Did we get numbers on that? Anyone think go to form?  Developer.  Why do you think that?  {Laughter}.

FROM THE FLOOR: Primarily I’m thinking that’s just sliding down the page so if I {inaudible} apply buttons whereas go to form is very descriptive of what you are going to do so you’ll click it and go to the form so I expect the action.

ALICE STILL: Would you have preferred go to application form?

FROM THE FLOOR: Yes that would be cool.  There is a button, I don’t know if I’m going to new page or go down the page or what’s going to happen but go to form I know what to expect.

WENDIE: If he explains it like that I would choose go to form.

ALICE STILL: Okay.  So, what about apply now?  Anyone think that?  Yes, why?

FROM THE FLOOR: Well, many people are going to read the page first, think about it for a week then go apply now, so apply now suggests this is where you go to fill out the form like now so it’s a little more – oh I’m going to do it later.

ALICE STILL: Yes.

FROM THE FLOOR: Button none of above?  Why do you need the button?

ALICE STILL: Why do you need a button?

FROM THE FLOOR: Why is there a button there?

ALICE STILL: Because there is no form at the top of the page I guess would be my reasoning.

FROM THE FLOOR: You haven’t got all the information yet, have you, so you are saying apply now before you know whether you should apply.  You’ve got to give everyone the information about applying and what you want and things like transport and the creche and all this stuff so people know they could apply because if you are saying hey we’re looking for speakers apply now, you’ve no idea whether or not that’s right for you so you’ve got to give them the information if you know you want to apply you scroll down, apply, fill in the form, apply.  But if you are looking for new people who haven’t done them before you’ve got to give them all the cajoling to get them to do it so if you go we’re looking for speakers and we’d like you to apply now fill inform, they’re going to go it’s not for me and bottle out you are trying to be diverse.  If you give the call of action too far ahead of giving the information to make them know they might be able to do it even though they’ve never done it before you are excluding them by not giving them the information to include them.

ALICE STILL: Who else agree to that reasoning?  Sounds pretty – test it, yes.

FROM THE FLOOR: {Inaudible}.

ALICE STILL: Okay we’re going to carry on now and get a bit faster on these questions because we’re getting into discussion and I’ve got 5 minutes left.  How should we frame the different application methods?  So, this is the different ways you can apply.  Do you think we should ask people to email us if they want to use a different application method other than the form on the site?  Who thinks that?  No.

To you think that we should list the ways that people can apply but explain that there is no preferred application method?  Tammie.  Yes.  Yes this is my new favourite as well.  So, before last year we just had the list of them then the form at the bottom but we didn’t say that it won’t be biased if you don’t use a video or won’t be biased if you don’t use a form so I think people might have got a bit confused with that.

And then C, we should just use an application form.  Does anyone think that?

FROM THE FLOOR: Actually it’s a caveat. I think maybe you could include the fields for enter your video code link for YouTube video or enter an Instagram image here or whatever they want to share or up load the image file directly into the form because just emailing back and forth –

ALICE STILL: To make it easier, yes.

FROM THE FLOOR: Yes because you’re the organisers, you’re going to be doing all the work of sorting through applications, also event organiser, and that sucks so make it easier for yourself as well as other people so allow this other {inaudible} in the form itself that that might be an agreed middle ground.

ALICE STILL: Okay.  Anyone think none of the above?  What would you suggest?

FROM THE FLOOR: I think if you’ve got a preferred format that makes it easier for you to collate responses to indicate that’s what it is but obviously allow people to confirm attendance too.

ALICE STILL: The reason we introduced it initially was to make it more inclusive so to include people that aren’t into writing basically because a lot of people aren’t and a lot of people can’t so that’s why we edited the video and that’s why we edit in the sketch so I think we’ll probably stick with it.

FROM THE FLOOR: I kind of like the combination but the other reason we did it which I think is important some people have other people that do communication for them.  They may be have a buddy or something like that and that was actually one of our real situations that they had someone that did all their correspondence.  So I think kind of combining it with that but say if someone else does it rather than them feeling they can’t apply unless they do it themselves.

ALICE STILL: Okay and so question 6 we’re just going to go ahead, so what fields do you reckon we should include on the form?  Do you think, A, B, C or none of the above? I’m going to go through this and explain the reasoning behind it.  I think some of these fields we don’t need, WordPress.org user name I don’t think we need to collect that before someone has gone to this stage of being a speaker because it’s really a technical thing so given that we get quite a lot of applications and we’re only going to have a proportion of those people going through to speak I think it’s unnecessary and for some reason it seems to be a standard thing on WordCamp forms.  I can understand perhaps with the US one because they get such a large number and it’s all automated but I don’t think that we need to do it because we’re doing it specifically manually any way.

And then there is just small differences in these things saying talk title, topic title and that’s really minor {inaudible} last year we used topic title, I think we should be using talk title.

FROM THE FLOOR: Why do you need bio?

ALICE STILL: Again perhaps a thing we don’t need until after someone has got through to being a speaker.  It’s just because it’s what goes on the web-site.  So yes again perhaps we cut out anything excessive.

FROM THE FLOOR: Is it worth adding something about who is reviewing applications?

ALICE STILL: And how we do it.

FROM THE FLOOR: You might assume it’s going to a group of white men and you are not a group, if you write a paragraph.

ALICE STILL: I liked {inaudible} writing a post about how they select speakers and maybe that’s something we add.  I’m worried about putting too much information on this page so may be if we linked how do we select speakers?

WENDIE: Time is up.  I almost fell on stage to tell you.

ALICE STILL: Everyone knows the answer to the last question.  Definitely not A.  And if you want to get in touch or offer any extra advice or keep the suggestions coming and all the details are there and I’m going to put the full brief up on that link after the conference.

WENDIE: And is anybody thinking about applying for WordCamp Brighton?  Yay, great because if you are then please share your ideas about how your ideal form would be like with Alice and may be Tammie so they can take that into consideration.  Thank you very much for showing us this insight in how you try to get to inclusiveness and diversity at the same time and how they work together.  It was really interesting.  Please put your hands together for Alice.  {Applause}