About Us

One simple answer is fairness. 

Through inclusive communications we can avoid creating disadvantage for segments of our community. We can develop stronger relationships with audience members, and provide better access to the information we wish to share. 

It also enhances the reputation of our brand, improves social licence and mitigates risk for negative public relations.  

At Inclusive Communications, we recommend the use of Plain English principles as a basis for all our work. 

Using a range of methods and platforms is another way we can be pro-active in building an inclusive community with our communication materials. Not everyone has internet at home, we’re not all users of social media. Understanding an audience and catering to the different ways they choose to engage with information is another way we can be inclusive. 

We support Web Content Accessibility Guidelines for web-based content. 

We recommend Vision Australia’s Bigger, brighter and bolder as a design principle.

Inclusive Communications recognises diversity, equality and inclusion in its partnerships with clients and in the development of strategies and communication resources. 

Language can be a barrier.  

At its most extreme, language can be used intentionally to disempower and exclude. Remember how colonisers forbade First Nations people to speak their own languages, and thrust English upon them instead? This was a strategic move to disempower and destroy relationships and culture.

Complex language styles, such as legalese or even academia, can also have an exclusionary effect. Granted, there are times when the level of specificity afforded by bureaucratic language is needed. 

But there are times when it is used unnecessarily and it puts understanding out of reach of anyone who hasn’t had the experience of a law degree or 20 years in the public service.

Acronyms, slang or jargon are examples of a more accidental or casual type of exclusion that happens, often without malice, when communications aren’t developed or reviewed with the user or audience at the centre.

It creates an unnecessary barrier that makes access difficult to some people in our community. Those people affected may already face barriers due to English being a second language, or lack of access to higher education. So it becomes an opportunity for us to be inclusive, and to build accessibility into our communication methods.

Exclusion can be a product of our unconscious bias. Are you heterosexual, or cisgender, and forget at times that others are not? Are you used to your own ability and sometimes forget that others are differently abled? An inclusive approach can help you to identify and troubleshoot these issues from occuring.