This year we are delighted to share Color Communications Badges with all the attendees at WordCamp Philly. These color badges are stickers that can be placed on a name badge and will enable people to express their communication preferences quickly and non-verbally.
These color communication badges are adapted from the versions popularized by the Autistic Self Advoacy Network. Use of these badges is entirely a personal choice. They can be affixed directly to your WordCamp Philly name badge.
Come Talk to Me!
A person wearing a green badge is actively seeking interaction. They may have trouble initiating conversations, but it’s okay to come up and start a conversation with them.
Do I Know You?
A person wearing a yellow badge only wants to talk to people they recognize. Unless you’ve met this person face-to-face before, please don’t start a conversation with them. If they start talking to you, you’re welcome to talk back with them.
Not Right Now.
A person wearing a red badge does not want anyone to talk to them. They may approach others to talk, in which case it’s okay to respond. Unless you’ve been told that you’re on someone’s “red list”, please don’t start interacting with them. (A “red list” is the list of people who the badge-wearer has previously identified as exempt from the stop. The badge-wearer would have let those on the list know in advance that it was okay to approach them.)
Please respect the preferences of those wearing a color communication badge. If you are wearing a color communication badge and someone is not respecting your communication preference, advise a WordCamp Philly organizer.
You can download the color communication badges information as a PDF.
I get what you’re trying to do, but I find it weird and a bit off putting. Especially the red badge. Just saying.
Hi Seth –
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. As an organizer for WordCamp Philly, I welcome your constructive feedback on our approach. I’m grateful to you for that.
One of our core aims with WordCamp Philly is to craft a WordPress event that empowers as many people as possible to have a wonderfully enjoyable and rich experience.
As organizers, we have heard repeatedly from people in our community who shared privately that they really struggle with big crowds, the kind that will be at WordCamp Philly. We expect in the area of 350 people to attend. For some people, that’s a lot of people that they don’t know. That can be very intimidating – if not outright debilitating – for some people, people who would otherwise love to spend a day or two learning about WordPress and all that it can do.
To that end, the stickers are intended as a tool to help those who might struggle with verbal communication to attend in a way that will increase their comfort levels. The stickers are an attempt to help those who wish to use them to be an active part of our community in a way that respects their own needs.
That said, I certainly appreciate how seeing a red sticker for the first time might be off-putting. Yet, if we look at it from a perspective of support, we can try to see the stickers as a way to help those who wear them. We can be happy knowing we didn’t cause undue anxiety to that person with the red sticker. We helped that person have a great time at WordCamp Philly!
Admittedly, these sorts of stickers are new. That’s why we shared them via this post. We’ve also created a PDF which can be downloaded and printed. We’ll also have a few printed copies of the PDF available at the registration table.
I sure hope that you can see these stickers as a positive step forward, a way to enable and encourage more people to join the great experience that is our WordPress community.
I have an austistic grandchild and applaud this accessibility idea.
Thanks! Our organizing team is thrilled that you like it. We hope that they prove very useful.