For many organizations, accessibility begins with a familiar statement: If you need an accommodation, please let us know.
We see some version of this language everywhere. It appears on school forms, event registrations, conference materials, business websites, church announcements, employment documents, and community programs. The statement is usually well-intentioned. It communicates a willingness to respond when someone identifies a need.
But there is an important accessibility question hidden within that statement:
Why does access begin only after someone asks for it?
As an accessibility professional, I believe this is an important distinction. Providing accommodations is necessary, and individualized accommodations will always have a role in accessibility. People have different needs, and we cannot anticipate every barrier for every person.
However, an accommodation process should not be an organization’s entire accessibility strategy.
When accessibility depends primarily on an individual recognizing a barrier, locating the appropriate person, disclosing a need, requesting a change, and waiting for someone else to respond, much of the responsibility for access has been transferred from the organization to the person encountering the barrier.
That is where we need to think differently.
The Hidden Work of Requesting Access
Requesting an accommodation may look like a simple interaction from the outside.
A person sends an email. A parent completes a form. Someone asks an employee for assistance. A family contacts an event organizer before attending.
What we do not always see is everything that happens before and after that request.
The individual first has to recognize that the environment may present a barrier. They may need to research the location, activity, program, or process to determine whether participation will be possible. If accessibility information is unavailable, they then have to determine whom to contact.
Next comes the decision about how much information to disclose.
How much do I need to explain?
Will simply stating what I need be enough?
Will someone ask why I need it?
Will documentation be required?
Will the request be understood?
Will I be viewed as difficult?
Will the accommodation actually be available when I arrive?
And if the initial answer is no, incomplete, or unclear, the person may then have to advocate further.
This creates an additional layer of work that people who do not encounter these barriers may never experience.
For disabled people and families, this work can become repetitive. The same needs may have to be explained at school, medical appointments, extracurricular activities, restaurants, community events, places of worship, recreational programs, hotels, workplaces, and countless other environments.
One request may seem small.
A lifetime of requests is not.
Accessibility and Accommodation Are Related, but They Are Not the Same
It is helpful to distinguish between accessibility and accommodation.
Accessibility is proactive. It considers how environments, information, programs, services, technology, and experiences can be designed so that more people can use and participate in them from the beginning.
Accommodation is typically responsive. It addresses a specific individual’s need when the standard environment, process, or method does not provide access.
We need both.
The problem occurs when organizations rely almost exclusively on the second.
For example, providing captions only after someone requests them is an accommodation. Routinely captioning video content is a proactive accessibility practice.
Moving furniture after a wheelchair user arrives may provide access in that moment. Designing the room with clear, usable pathways from the beginning is proactive accessibility.
Providing electronic materials after someone requests an alternative to print may be an accommodation. Routinely offering information in multiple accessible formats gives people options without requiring disclosure.
Finding a quiet room after a family explains that a child needs a lower-stimulation environment can be helpful. Identifying and communicating the availability of a quieter space before an event allows families to plan without having to initiate that conversation.
This does not mean every accommodation can or should become universal. Some needs are highly individualized.
It does mean organizations should examine recurring accommodation requests and ask whether those requests are revealing barriers that could be addressed proactively.
The Burden of Access Should Not Rest Primarily on the Individual
One of the most important principles in accessibility planning is recognizing who is doing the work.
When a barrier exists, who is expected to identify it?
Who researches the solution?
Who initiates the conversation?
Who follows up?
Who makes sure the solution is actually available?
Too often, the answer is the disabled person or their family.
Consider a family deciding whether to attend a community event. Before purchasing tickets or registering, they may need information about parking, walking distances, accessible restrooms, seating, terrain, crowds, sensory conditions, mobility access, re-entry policies, or the accessibility of individual activities.
If none of this information is readily available, the family becomes responsible for conducting what is essentially an accessibility assessment before deciding whether they can participate.
The same issue occurs in other environments.
A new church visitor should not have to conduct extensive research to determine whether they can participate.
A student should not repeatedly have to remind adults about predictable access needs.
A customer should not have to call a business simply to learn whether they can enter and navigate the space.
A conference attendee should not have to request captions for every video shown during an event.
This is not about eliminating communication between organizations and the people they serve. Communication is essential to good accessibility practice.
It is about reducing unnecessary access labor.
Proactive Accessibility Does Not Mean Predicting Every Need
One concern I sometimes hear when discussing proactive accessibility is, “How are we supposed to know what everyone will need?”
The answer is simple.
You cannot.
Accessibility does not require mind reading, and no organization can create an environment that anticipates every individual need.
That is not the goal.
The goal is to identify barriers that are reasonably foreseeable, address what can be addressed in advance, provide useful information, offer options when possible, and create a clear process for addressing needs that remain.
A strong accessibility approach therefore includes both proactive design and responsive accommodation.
Organizations can begin by asking:
- What barriers are already known to exist in this environment, program, service, or activity?
- What accessibility questions do people repeatedly ask us?
- What accommodations are we repeatedly providing that could become standard practice?
- What information could we provide in advance so people can make informed decisions?
- Where are we unnecessarily requiring people to disclose a need in order to access something we could provide routinely?
- Have disabled people and families been included in evaluating the experience?
These questions shift accessibility from something we respond to into something we plan for.
What This Looks Like in Schools
Schools are environments where proactive accessibility can have an enormous impact.
Students do not all learn, communicate, regulate, move, process information, or demonstrate knowledge in the same way. Yet many educational activities are still designed around a relatively narrow expectation of how students should participate.
Accessibility planning should extend beyond formal accommodation documents.
Consider something as ordinary as a school assembly.
The traditional plan might involve hundreds of students sitting in one location, significant noise, limited movement, videos or presentations, extended periods of sitting, transitions through crowded hallways, and verbal instructions delivered to a large group.
For some students, those conditions can create immediate barriers.
A proactive approach asks about accessibility while the event is being planned rather than waiting until individual students experience difficulty.
Could captions be enabled on all videos?
Could students have different seating options?
Is there an appropriate lower-stimulation location for students who need one?
Can important information be provided visually as well as verbally?
Are staff members aware of different communication needs?
Can students who need movement participate without their movement automatically being treated as behavioral noncompliance?
The important point is that many of these practices benefit more than the students who have documented accommodations.
Captions may be necessary for one student and helpful to dozens of others. Written instructions may be essential for one learner and simply clearer for another. Flexible participation options can support students with identified needs while creating a better learning environment overall.
Good accessibility frequently improves usability for everyone.
What This Looks Like in Businesses
Businesses sometimes equate accessibility almost entirely with physical access. Accessible parking, entrances, pathways, and restrooms are essential, but physical access is only one part of the customer experience.
A customer has to find information, enter the business, navigate the space, communicate, understand available services, complete transactions, and interact with staff.
Each of those steps can contain barriers.
A business conducting an accessibility review might examine its website, entrance, interior pathways, signage, seating, checkout process, digital ordering systems, communication methods, restroom access, and staff practices.
It should also consider the information available before a customer arrives.
For example, a business website can clearly identify where an accessible entrance is located rather than making someone search for it upon arrival. It can explain available seating options, accessible parking, service animal policies, or alternative ways to access a service.
Providing information is itself an accessibility practice.
It gives people the ability to plan.
And importantly, it reduces the number of times someone has to call and essentially ask, Will I be able to use your business?
What This Looks Like at Community Events
Community events present unique accessibility challenges because they may take place in temporary or unfamiliar environments.
A park that is normally accessible may become difficult to navigate once vendor tents, electrical cords, temporary fencing, crowds, tables, and equipment are added.
A venue may have an accessible entrance but require attendees to travel a significant distance between activities.
An event may technically offer accessible parking but provide little information about where it is located.
This is why accessibility should be part of event planning rather than an item addressed after everything else has been decided.
Organizers should consider the complete participant experience: arrival, parking, entry, navigation, seating, communication, restrooms, activities, food areas, sensory conditions, emergency procedures, and departure.
Just as importantly, organizers should communicate what participants can expect.
Families may need to know whether an event includes flashing lights, amplified music, large crowds, uneven terrain, extended walking, long lines, or limited seating. Providing this information does not require organizers to make assumptions about who needs it.
It simply allows people to determine what works for them.
Faith Communities Must Move Beyond “Everyone Is Welcome”
Faith communities deserve particular attention in conversations about accessibility because the language of welcome is so central to their mission.
Churches frequently say that everyone is welcome.
But accessibility requires us to examine what happens after someone is welcomed through the door.
Can they participate?
Can they worship alongside their family?
Can they attend Bible study or small groups?
Can children participate meaningfully in children’s ministry?
Can disabled adults volunteer or serve in leadership roles?
Are videos captioned?
Are digital materials accessible?
Are there seating options that allow families to remain together?
Can someone using a mobility device access more than the sanctuary?
Do ministry leaders know how to respond to different communication, sensory, mobility, learning, or support needs?
A ramp may provide entrance into a building. It does not automatically create access to the life of the church.
That distinction matters.
True inclusion in a faith community means having opportunities not simply to attend, but to belong, contribute, serve, build relationships, worship, learn, and participate.
If a church’s accessibility strategy begins and ends with “Tell us if you need something,” the burden remains on disabled people and families to continually identify what the church has not considered.
Faith communities can do better by including accessibility in ministry planning from the beginning.
What Repeated Accommodation Requests Can Teach Us
Accommodation requests should not be viewed only as individual transactions.
They are also data.
If an organization receives the same type of request repeatedly, that pattern deserves attention.
Suppose attendees continually request electronic copies of printed materials. Instead of treating each request independently, the organization could begin routinely providing both.
If families repeatedly ask whether a community event has a quiet area, organizers might consider establishing one and including it in event information.
If visitors continually need assistance locating an accessible entrance, the problem may not be the visitor. The signage or wayfinding may need improvement.
If students repeatedly need the same modification to participate in a particular classroom activity, educators can examine the design of the activity itself.
Accessibility professionals should help organizations move beyond the question, How did we handle this accommodation?
The more useful question is:
What did this accommodation request teach us about our environment?
That is how organizations learn.
Information Is Part of Accessibility
One of the simplest ways organizations can reduce the burden of asking is to provide more useful information in advance.
People should not have to contact an organization to discover basic accessibility information that could easily be published.
An event page, business website, school communication, or church ministry page can explain accessibility features, available options, and known limitations.
This also requires honesty.
Accessibility information should be specific rather than relying on broad statements such as “fully accessible.”
Accessible to whom?
For what activity?
In what way?
A more useful approach describes the actual environment and available features. People can then make informed decisions based on their own needs.
This respects disabled people as experts in their own lives.
The organization’s responsibility is to provide accurate information and remove barriers where possible. The individual’s role should not be to extract basic information from the organization one question at a time.
Moving From Reactive to Proactive Access
Organizations do not need to redesign everything overnight to begin practicing proactive accessibility.
They do need to change when accessibility enters the conversation.
If accessibility is discussed only after a barrier is reported, it is entering the process too late.
Accessibility should be considered when programs are developed, buildings and spaces are arranged, technology is selected, websites are designed, events are planned, communications are created, staff are trained, and policies are written.
That shift requires organizations to stop thinking about accessibility as something they provide for a particular person and start recognizing it as part of how they design experiences for the public.
This does not eliminate accommodation requests.
Instead, it allows individualized accommodations to do what they are intended to do: address needs that could not reasonably be met through the standard accessible design of the environment or experience.
Access Is Also About Dignity
Accessibility conversations often focus on whether a person can technically participate.
We should also consider how they are required to obtain that participation.
There is a meaningful difference between entering a space where access has been considered and entering a space where you must immediately begin negotiating for it.
There is dignity in being able to locate information independently.
There is dignity in having options without having to explain why you need them.
There is dignity in being able to sit with your family instead of being separated into a designated accessible area.
There is dignity in not having to share personal information with multiple strangers.
There is dignity in being expected.
That last point is especially important.
Proactive accessibility communicates something powerful:
We anticipated that people would arrive with different bodies, minds, communication styles, sensory needs, ways of learning, and ways of participating—and we planned accordingly.
That is very different from communicating:
We did not plan for you, but we will try to make adjustments now that you are here.
Access Should Not Depend on Asking
There will always be a place for accommodation requests.
We cannot anticipate every person’s needs, nor should accessibility planning make assumptions about what an individual can or cannot do.
But we can anticipate many barriers.
We can learn from previous requests.
We can provide information.
We can offer options.
We can include disabled people in planning.
We can train staff and volunteers.
We can examine the entire experience rather than simply the entrance.
And when someone identifies a barrier, we can do more than solve that person’s immediate problem. We can ask whether the barrier should exist for the next person at all.
That is the shift I want more schools, businesses, community organizations, and faith communities to make.
Do not wait until someone arrives to begin thinking about access.
Do not make the parent send another email if the barrier could have been anticipated.
Do not make the customer call for information that could have been published.
Do not make the student repeatedly explain an established need.
Do not tell a congregation that everyone belongs while requiring disabled people and their families to continually negotiate what belonging looks like.
Before the next class, program, event, service, meeting, or community gathering, ask:
Who might encounter a barrier here?
What can we reasonably anticipate?
What can we address now?
What information can we provide before someone arrives?
What choices can we build in from the beginning?
And perhaps the most important question:
Who would have to ask for access under our current plan—and why are we making them ask?
Accessibility does not mean knowing every need before someone tells us.
It means taking responsibility for the barriers we can identify before someone has to point them out.
It means listening when barriers are identified and allowing what we learn to change future practice.
It means recognizing that an accommodation process is an important safety net, but it should never become a substitute for accessible planning.
The goal is not to create a world in which no one ever needs to request an accommodation.
The goal is to create environments where people do not have to request access to things that could have been accessible from the beginning.
Access should not depend on asking.
Plan for access before someone has to request it.