Thread by @elizejackson

This is strange. Usually when parents are mentioned, it means parents of disabled children. But that’s not the case here. Disabled people were clearly testers. No mention of disabled folks having agency or decision making power. Segmenting us with children is infantilizing.

https://twitter.com/PackagingEurope/status/1554108712108920832

The implication seems to be that making something accessible also means it’s unsafe for children? Not quite sure.

Oh yep. That’s what she meant.

As @jaivirdi and I wrote in this piece (about another P&G packaging design), inclusively designed product packaging focuses primarily on mobility and tokenizingly on blindness. There are no other disability segments. fastcompany.com/90696611/olays…

What this does is ensure that very specific charities continually get approached to provide testers, despite massive organizational failures. Here’s an example of @RNIB, a favorite corporate go-to. Lighthouse is another favorite for blind segments.

https://twitter.com/elizejackson/status/1539592519616446464

For mobility segments, MDA seems to be a corporate fav despite folks with muscular dystrophy absolutely despising them. I’d encourage you to check out the #EndTheTelethon hashtag.

I have been so lucky to have an opportunity to work with @hassankhaderali in my research. He’s someone with muscular dystrophy that companies aren’t going to reach by going through a large scale charity like the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

https://twitter.com/untonuggan/status/1554215478196932610

I feel that my original post inadvertently misidentified @spazgirl11 in an important way. Cara was kind enough to respond, describing how the CPF also gets taken up by corporations easily. Cara is another person who would be an epic leader of a disabled research process.

https://twitter.com/spazgirl11/status/1554490425616044032

These large scale, non-disabled led, disability charities have become a user/tester pipeline, and do absolutely nothing to address the inherent and oppressive power dynamics this creates.

I hate this dynamic so much, that this is how my LinkedIn profile has read for the past year (specifically the bottom paragraph). Which reminds me, I need to head over to LinkedIn to shitpost P&G there.

I’m not convinced a cardboard box needs 2,000 testers when the cardboard box maker hasn’t shown it knows how to value even one of them.

This is how I came across this announcement.

https://twitter.com/elizejackson/status/1537444074658992128