
Originally published April 16, 2015, last updated December 11, 2019
Getting together in-person to talk about accessibility and learn about inclusive design are great opportunities to meet people in your community, find out about their work, and share your knowledge.
Whether I’m chatting on Twitter or attending a local meetup event, every week I’m asked about local in-person gatherings for digital accessibility and inclusive design.
In the interest of encouraging people to attend, I’ve created a list of all the in-person groups I could find online.
The list contains over 50 meetup groups!
You’ll find groups organized first by region, then alphabetically by city within each region.
Know of other accessibility and inclusive design in-person groups? Let me know via my contact form.
Note: Only groups that have met in the past year are included. The list is updated quarterly (and sometimes more often).
Accessibility and Inclusive Design Groups
Asia
- Bangalore, India: Bangalore Accessibility and Inclusive Design Meetup
- Mumbai, India: Mumbai Accessibility and Inclusive Design
Australia and New Zealand
- Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland Digital Accessibility and Inclusive Design Meetup
- Brisbane, Australia: Brisbane Web Accessibility & Inclusive Design
- Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne Web Accessibility & Inclusive Design
- Perth, Australia: Perth Web Accessibility & Inclusive Design
- Sydney, Australia: Sydney Web Accessibility & Inclusive Design
Canada
- Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: a11yHam
- Montréal, Quebec, Canada: a11yMTL
- Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: a11yYOW – Ottawa Digital Accessibility and Inclusive Design
- Québec City, Quebec, Canada: a11yQC
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada: #a11yTO
- Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Vancouver Digital Accessibility
Europe
- Berlin, Germany: A11y Meetup Berlin
- Bristol, England: Bristol Inclusive Design and Development
- Budapest, Hungary: Budapest Accessibility Meetup
- Ghent, Belgium: Ghent Inclusive Design
- Helsinki, Finland: Helsinki Web Accessibility Meetup
- Leeds, England: Accessibility Leeds
- London, England: London Accessibility Meetup
- Munich, Germany: Munich Accessibility Meetup
- Nottingham, England: Accessibility Nottingham
- Stockholm, Sweden: t12t – Stockholm
- Utrecht, Netherlands: Inclusive Design & Accessibility
United States
- Atlanta, Georgia: A11Y Atlanta
- Atlanta, Georgia: Metro Atl Accessibility
- Austin, Texas: Austin Accessibility and Inclusive Design
- Boston, Massachusetts: A11yBos
- Boulder, Colorado: Boulder Accessibility and Inclusive Design
- Buffalo, New York: Buffalo Accessibility Group
- Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Iowa Web Accessibility, UX & Inclusive Design
- Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Web Accessibility and Inclusive Design
- Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Accessibility
- Denver, Colorado: DenA11y
- Lincoln, Nebraska: Nebraska Digital Accessibility
- Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles Accessibility and Inclusive Design
- Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota: Accessibility Twin Cities
- New York City, New York: Accessibility (A11y) in Libraries
- New York City, New York: Accessibility New York City
- New York City (Long Island), New York: LI Web Accessibility and Inclusive Design
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: A11yPHL – Philly Accessibility
- Portland, Oregon: Portland Accessibility and User Experience
- Princeton, New Jersey: A11yPrinceton, Princeton Accessibility
- Salt Lake City, Utah: Utah Inclusive Design and Digital Accessibility
- San Diego, California: San Diego Accessibility & Inclusive Design
- San Francisco Bay Area, California: Bay Area Accessibility and Inclusive Design
- San Francisco, California: Bay Area Accessibility Dinners
- Scottsdale/Phoenix, Arizona: Scottsdale/Phoenix Web Accessibility Design
- Seattle, Washington: Seattle Area Accessibility & Inclusive Design
- Washington, DC: Accessibility DC
Worldwide
Roledrinks is a different concept than the other meetups. It’s an opportunity for you to get together with others in your community for drinks with lightning talks about accessibility.
Anyone is welcome to set up their own roledrinks event for their community. Visit their site to learn more about getting started.
Any group I missed? If you know of others, please share them in the comments.
Good list, Deborah.
I’m surprised that there are 6 groups in Australia and only 2 in the UK (and neither of those are near me).
I used to go to the the UXPA Scotland meetings, but they haven’t been run for quite a long time now.
Hi Claire,
Thanks for your comment. There could be more accessibility and inclusive design groups in the UK, and I just haven’t found them. If you find any, let me know and I’ll add them to the list.
Sorry to hear the UXPA Scotland meetings haven’t been held in a while. I was office for our Michigan UPA (now UXPA) group for three years.
We don’t have a specific accessibility/inclusive design group in our area. I host accessibility talks through our Refresh Detroit and Detroit User Experience groups each year.
There’s another BAY Area group which meets regularly for dinners and discussions of accessibility-related topics. See:
http://www.meetup.com/Bay-Area-Accessibility-Dinners/
Hi Jennifer,
Thanks for the info. Do you know who the group organizer is? I visited the group and discovered it’s closed. The info on Meetup only shows one organizer’s first name. If someone doesn’t recognize who that person is, they may be uncomfortable joining the group.
The organizer is Ted Drake.
For the Bay Area Accessibility dinners, it’s not closed, so I am not sure why it would appear that way to you. There are well over 200 members, so there’s no reason for discomfort.
Here’s the link for the Seattle Meetup that I dm-ed you about on Twitter:
http://www.meetup.com/a11ysea/
Thanks, Jennifer!