Cards for inclusion – a new way to play access

“We wanted a way to help everyone dig into their own creativity to come up with access solutions, rather than seeing the removal of barriers as something only ‘experts’ can solve – and we wanted to make it playful as well as educational.” Jo Verrent, Senior Producer, Unlimited

Taking inspiration from gamification, the cards have taken over 18 months in development and have been trialled and tested around the world including in Belgium, Ukraine, Singapore, Japan and China, to ensure they are as simple and straightforward to use as possible.

So what are Cards for Inclusion? There are three sets of cards
• WHAT: art, event or item
• WHERE: place or space or context
• BARRIER: things that stop people from accessing

Each card has a simple word or phrase on it and are beautifully illustrated by disabled artist Seohye Lee. In small teams, groups are given a card from each set, for example:
WHAT: Sculpture
WHERE: In a park
BARRIER: Steps or uneven ground

The group have to discuss various solutions to overcome that barrier and ensure everyone can get to, engage and participate in the art or item in that location or circumstance. The more varied the group who discuss the situation, the more varied the solutions they can come up with.

Of course, things can get complicated very quickly as the cards are drawn at random! The example above was a simple one, but what about:
WHAT: An installation
WHERE: On a website
BARRIER: The attitude that ‘disability means you can’t do things’

So here a group might discuss how you ensure access to the internet, website accessibility, how you can ensure user testing includes disabled people, how you can signal the fact that disabled people are very much welcomed and catered for within such a site, and how any promotion of the installation can carry the message that disabled people are equally able to participate. The group might also touch on promoting a wider ‘can do’ message through the artwork itself.

The BARRIER cards fall into three types:

• those directly arising from the artwork itself or the environment it is in (such as ‘you need to look at it’, ‘you need to speak’ or ‘you need to be quiet’)
• those that arise from negative attitudes or institutional discrimination (such as ‘disability = embarrassment’, ‘no money’ and ‘access is not a priority’)
• internalised barriers, those arising from a lack of social or societal support (such as ‘low confidence’, ‘I don’t know who to contact’ or ‘I have no help’)

In our experience, most arts organisations only consider the first set (if they consider access at all) yet to truly include disabled people, all three need to be addressed. If we don’t change how disability is seen and the impacts of discrimination on disabled people, we won’t ever get to an equal situation. A practical example of this would be putting on a BSL interpreted performance but not reaching out directly to the local deaf BSL-using community (and just sending them an email doesn’t count). Challenge yourself and think creatively!

We’re asking people who play to share solutions through with us on Twitter using #cardsforinclusion, enabling others to learn from your experiences.

So how do you get hold of a set? Simple – anyone can download a PDF set, print them and cut them out to play.

1. Download a PDF set  (see below)
2. Cut them out and play
3. Share your solutions with #cardsforinclusion on Twitter

Create your own versions

Unlimited are happy for you to create your own versions. Get in touch by sending an email to info@weareunlimited.org.uk to find out how. The cards are downloadable and aimed for international use. They can be individually customised as anyone wishes and in some countries this has included adding the words translated into different languages. Hope that helps and just email info@weareunlimited.org.uk if you would like the words on the cards and the instructions as a Word file.

Information for visually impaired people

The card game is designed for groups and contains very simple words and images to describe those words for those who prefer visual representation/for whom English is not their first language. We’ve developed the cards over the last 18 months, including playing them with some visually impaired people present. When we have played the game with visually impaired people in the past, the word or words on each card has been read out (which is usually the case for all groups playing, nor just for visually impaired people). In response to suggestions from visually impaired people we made the cards large, the text clear, large and in a specific font.

Download a PDF set