Cvent Accessibility Boss: ‘Inclusivity shouldn't be a differentiator. It Should be the baseline’

For Stephen Cutchins, the director of accessibility at event logistics company Cvent, disability is part and parcel of his being. Cutchins has Tourette’s Syndrome, his mother was an amputee, and he spent his summers growing up with cousins who coped with cerebral palsy and were wheelchair users. These six degrees of separation to disability means accessibility is obviously a non-negotiable way of life to Cutchins and his orbit.

“This isn’t just work for me. It’s about the people I love,” he said to me over email.

Cutchins, a Virginia Tech graduate with a degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering, has devoted over the last two decades of his life to embedding an accessibility-first mindset within various companies. He was working in Washington DC as a consultant on a project which required Section 508 compliance, something he’d previously never heard of. The topic immediately got him in a vise grip, and the more he learned about it, the more interested he became. In the early days of his career, Cutchins’ work in accessibility entailed quality control efforts like testing screen readers and observing disabled people use products. Later, his work involved helping others develop their own accessibility practices. That led him to joining Cvent.

Cutchins described Cvent as “one of the world’s leading event management technology platforms,” telling me his current role involves ensuring the company’s software, and the events that run atop of it, “are as accessible and inclusive as possible.” He noted it’s no coincidence many of the top disability-oriented conferences rely on Cvent’s platform, as the organizations who host them “have exceptionally high standards for digital accessibility.” Cutchins said earning, and maintaining, people’s trust is paramount and “a point of real pride” for him and Cvent.

When asked why accessibility matters so much to Cvent, Cutchins made the analogy that digital accessibility is to the web what physical curb cuts are to sidewalks. They’re both relatively simple things that can have immense impact on people because they promote empathy and inclusiveness. If software isn’t accessible, Cutchins said, that signals to the disability community their needs don’t matter and, frankly, they aren’t welcome. This stance is made worse by the fact Cutchins noted roughly 26% of the population copes with some sort of disability, which he rightly said is “not a niche audience.” In other words, a quarter of the population ought to be able to accessibly register for and attend conferences, appear on stage, and socialize like anyone else.

“We have a responsibility to make sure our platform enables all of that,” Cutchins said of Cvent’s North Star. “Beyond the moral imperative, it’s just good business, and our clients are realizing that more and more. These are people who want to spend money and participate. The question is whether the technology, the venue, and the event experience are making it possible for them to do so.”

Cutchins stated the obvious in telling me one of the biggest barriers to digital access is inaccessible software. He explained many event planners are coordinating events using tools that decidedly weren’t designed with accessibility in mind, which he said “creates problems from the start.” Part of the solution, he added, is choosing software that natively addresses accessibility out of the box; that’s Cvent’s modus operandi, with Cutchins emphasizing accessibility should be “baked in, not bolted on” by all companies, of all industries. The corollary to this problem is many, if not most, event planners presume disabled people won’t attend their thing. This bias, Cutchins told me, is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as no one shows up to events because they aren’t accessible in the first place. What do you do in this situation? “Ask,” Cutchins said.

He added: “When someone registers, ask what accommodations they need. Captions, sign language interpreters, low sensory rooms, whatever it might be. The more planners that proactively normalize the question, the more comfortable people with disabilities will feel showing up. The more they show up, the more planners realize the audience has always been there—they’ve just been waiting to be welcomed properly.”

Disabled people don’t want extras, Cutchins said. They want dignity.

“They just want an equal opportunity to participate. They want your website to work with their screen reader. They want to be able to register for an event without hitting a digital wall. They want to get up on stage in a wheelchair and deliver a keynote,” he said. “We also hear from the neurodiverse community. Those voices help guide how we build, test, and improve our products.”

Apropos of our interview happening ahead of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Cutchins told me accessibility awareness has “come so far” in the last 20 years—but, as ever, there is still much progress to be made. The industry, he noted, sees the word discrimination as a dirty word, but the reality is digital inaccessibility is functionally discriminatory. The good news, according to Cutchins, is accessibility awareness has ratcheted up dramatically, particularly since the pandemic forced everyone to rethink how they’d access work, school, and socialization. The virtual-by-necessity nature of communication during COVID’s apex (or nadir, if you prefer) meant many more disabled people could be meaningfully included in meetings and other get-togethers.

Moreover, Cutchins told me artificial intelligence is “changing the economics of accessibility” and cited automated captioning as one example. The end result may not be quite as good as professional captioning companies like VITAC, who uses a hybrid “man versus machine” approach in creating good captions, but there will be growth—and there’s a bigger win. “[AI is making] accessible events possible at price points that weren’t realistic before,” Cutchins said. “Technology is helping close the gap.”

As to feedback, Cutchins called it “genuinely encouraging.” It means a lot to him that so many of the aforementioned heavy-hitter disability conferences from organizations like CSUN and the National Federation of the Blind trust Cvent to run their events. These organizations “know accessibility inside and out,” Cutchins said, "so their trust is not something we take lightly.” More broadly, Cutchins noted accessibility awareness is increasing in urgency, with more and more people asking for it—especially so recently in areas like local governments and institutions of higher leaning as the recently-delayed Title II web accessibility mandates remain top of mind in terms of compliance, which he said is “a significant shift from even a few years ago.”

“The bigger indicator of success to me is when accessibility stops being treated as ‘innovative’ or ‘exceptional’ and starts being treated as table stakes,” Cutchins said. “That’s the cultural shift we’re working toward. Inclusivity shouldn’t be a differentiator; it should just be the baseline.”

Looking towards the future, Cutchins said it’s his hope event planners eventually operate under the assumption disabled people do and will attend their events provided they’re accessible. The key is to be proactive in building in accessibility from the very beginning, adding he’d love to see more emphasis put on accommodating the neurodiverse community by way of quiet rooms, self-checkin options, and more.

“That’s what I love about accessibility: When it’s done right, it just makes things better for everyone,” Cutchins said.

One way or another, people are going to have to reckon long-term with accessibility.

“Organizations are going to have to deal with this whether they are ready or not,” Cutchins said. “I would much rather help them get ahead of it than watch them scramble to catch up. The opportunity to do that is really what keeps me going.”