Talking about people with disabilities can be hard. Here’s how to get it right.

How do you react to people with disabilities? Do you stumble on your words, struggle for how to phrase things because you’re nervous about getting it wrong? If you nodded your head yes, then you’re not alone. When I interviewed Ed Summers, Director of Accessibility at SAS, at SAS Global Forum 2018, I did just that. (Here's Ed and his dog Chewy -->)

In my introduction to the video interview, I stumbled on phrases like “people with disabilities” and “software accessibility.” After the interview, I called out my mistakes but tried to sweep them under the rug as not to make us have to shoot it again.

But Ed did something remarkable. He stopped me right there. He looked at me dead on and said, “No. Let’s do that again. I want people to feel confident talking about people with disabilities. Here are a few ways you can phrase it…”

After his helpful explanation and my rehearsing a few options, we re-shot the interview and nailed it. I asked Ed a few more questions about this topic, and wanted to share them in hopes that you’ll be more prepared to speak about people with disabilities.

Me: Why do people feel uncomfortable talking about people with disabilities?

Ed: It is common to hesitate and search for words when we talk about certain topics. On the surface, we want to be politically correct, but I think it is deeper than that. We want to use inclusive language that makes all our users and potential users feel comfortable and welcome.

Me: What are some general rules to follow for appropriate phrases? What should we avoid?

Ed: I recommend that you always use “people first” language.

For example, people with disabilities, people with visual disabilities, people with cognitive disabilities, people with physical disabilities, etc. Sometimes I swap “users” for “people,” e.g., users with disabilities.

Avoid these phrases: the blind, the disabled, the deaf, blind users, deaf users, disabled users, etc.

Me: Let’s relate it to software. “Accessible software” is OK, right?

Ed: Yes, accessible software. Accessible analytics. I think the other key point is that the mission of the SAS accessibility program is to increase the accessibility of the field of analytics. That is much broader than increasing the accessibility of SAS products.

One practical dimension to this broader mission is that our customers share analytical insights internally within their organizations and more broadly with the general public. Those insights are shared by creating artifacts such as charts, graphs, tables, etc. using SAS. The people that receive those artifacts typically have no idea that the artifacts were created by SAS. We’re working hard to make sure that people of all abilities can receive the full value of those insights.

Thank you, Ed, for providing clarity and confidence in this initially uncertain area. I’m proud of what SAS is doing for people with disabilities in the world of analytics. And I’m proud of this video. We got it right.