The other day, I spoke with Lance Weiler of, among other things, the WorkBook Project. It was mostly a bit of PR for ARGFest, but he asked me a question that got me thinking… “What can be done to make ARGs and transmedia experiences more accessible?” Over the years, I’ve developed stock answers that just spill right out with almost no thought. So what was the struggle? It’s not a hard question. I answer it all the time. In fact, the accessibility issue is why a lot of people bring me on as a consultant. If I can answer the question in a sentence or two… what am I actually worth? Is it really that easy?

The thing is… it is just that easy. Yet, it’s still the biggest issue that most transmedia projects face. And we all make such a big deal about it and create charts and graphs and get all thinky and academic, when, in reality, it starts with just a bit of common sense. I’ve boiled it down for most of my clients into a four step sentence… once we see that those things are met, then we can start applying other strategies. But until then, there’s no real point in trying anything else because they won’t give you the results that you want. And, seeing as I’ve spilled the four steps on the WorkBook Project, I might as well cover them here, too. With a little more explanation, even.

The Four Easy Steps in One Easy Sentence

To make your transmedia experience accessible, you need to connect with the audience on their terms, where they already are, with tools that they’re already using, and in ways that they already understand.

Let’s repeat that!

To make your transmedia experience accessible you need to connect with your audience

1. on their terms
2. where they already are
3. with tools that they’re already using, and
4. in ways that they already understand.

It really is that simple.

This does not mean that your entire experience must follow those guidelines. But if you want to attract and engage an audience, you need to start there. Those are the basics and they have to be acknowledged and dealt with before you can move on. Once you’ve gotten the audience interested, you can shake things up and employ other strategies to increase their interest and their engagement and their commitment to the experience.  You just have to meet the basics first.

Now don’t think that this is some rigid thing. It’s completely flexible and can be (should be!) customized to your specific transmedia experience. It may seem that the easiest solution is to throw the experience out onto a popular social networking site or two. You could be right, that might be the best strategy. But don’t lock yourself into that thinking. There are a lot of other options out there and they really depend on your audience. So think about who your audience is and, once you’ve determined that, think about where they hang out and what they do. Look at the tools and the platforms that they’re using, because that’s what they’re comfortable with. And armed with that knowledge, you’ll be able to use that information to your (and your audience’s) advantage.

1. On their terms

I also call this the “Don’t be a dick” rule (it’s a bit more catchy, but a bit less ladylike). The last thing that you want to do is piss off your audience – this is especially true when they are first engaging with the experience. Introduce yourself, but then let them take the next step. Don’t force them into the experience, but make it inviting and easy for them to get involved. And, more than that, don’t make them to do anything they are not yet ready to do. For example, if phones are an integral part of your experience – don’t force them to hand over their phone number before they can poke around and get a feel for how it might be used.

2. Where they already are

If you build it, they will come… but only if you take it to your audience. Do not expect them to search you out. They won’t. Think of it in the real world sense… if you were creating a game for urban hipsters, you wouldn’t hang out in a corn field in rural Iowa and wait for them to show up. They never would. So why would you do something like that with the really cool transmedia experience you just spent months putting together? Identify your target audience and figure out where they’re likely to hang out and then take the game to them. Now, of course, getting an audience isn’t as easy just showing on their turf, but it’s a great first step and it’s going to make the job of attracting and engaging an audience a heck of a lot easier.

You also have to do this on their terms… if you go someplace where you are not allowed to be or do something you are not allowed to do, they are not going to react kindly. In fact, there may be backlash. If your audience is wikipedians, don’t create an article on your big non-existent evil corporation. Or, if you’re aiming at an audience on unfiction, don’t post to threads on or about your game. You might get people talking, but they’re going to be talking about how much you don’t understand them and their rules. You don’t want that. You want them talking about the experience and becoming engaged with it not against it. So go to where there are, but don’t be a dick while you’re there.

3. With tools that they’re already using

Don’t force people to learn a new tool in order to become engaged with your transmedia experience. I know twitter is all the rage and even Oprah has talked about – but the fact is, a lot of people still do not use it (ooo pretty infographics). Just because you are following 150 people and checking in every hour, doesn’t mean that they are. So, if you’re reaching out to a general broad audience, do not make twitter a requirement for participation. If you do, you are going to lose most of the people who only check in every once in a long while and you’ll never reach the people who aren’t using it at all. This doesn’t mean that you can’t use twitter or other tools that not everyone is using, but you can’t make them a requirement or rely on them, alone, to drive the experience. Once they become engaged, they may choose to join twitter or whatever, but until then, don’t force it.

There are, of course, exceptions. For example, the Cathy’s Book app, which was built specifically for the iPhone or the iPod Touch. It was platform specific and a bit cool & funky. But in order to over come this accessibility issue, they had to create resources and demos to explain how to interact with the experience. So they acknowledged the problem and then worked around it. That’s always an option. But you have to, at least, acknowledge these things.

4. In ways that they already understand.

Just as you don’t want to force the audience to learn a new tool, you don’t want to force them to have to learn to use a tool in a new way. Essentially, don’t force your players to become power users within the first few moments of your experience. Going back to twitter – it could mean not using direct messages that they might miss or not understand how to reply to. If you want to use a tool in a new way or take advantage of the advanced features, that’s fine. However, you need to ease them into it over time and teach them how to do what you want them to do. Otherwise, they could become confused or, worse, frustrated and leave before they’ve had chance to become engaged. You don’t want that to happen! You want people to become engaged and enjoy the experience you just worked so hard to create and you should because it’s awesome!

It makes sense, doesn’t it? Pretty simple, even, right? I told you! Accessibility isn’t that hard. But you can do more and, soon, I’ll cover some advanced strategies – using things like clear calls to action and “meta sites” or how and why you might want to (or not want to!) employ tiered experiences and live events. And, of course, I’ll talk about the cute brunette who needs your help. But, don’t get ahead of yourself because nothing else you do will be as successful as you hope if you can’t account for these four simple steps. Really. No matter how clever you are or great your experience is, if you want to be accessible, you need to connect with your audience on their terms, where they already are, with tools that they’re already using, and in ways that they already understand.