What if accessibility isn’t about compliance at all, but about removing barriers so more people can fully participate?
We talk a lot about community on Find Your Freaks. We talk about connection, belonging, and what it means to create spaces where people feel seen and valued. But there’s an important piece of that conversation that often gets overlooked.
People can’t belong to spaces they can’t access.
And yet, accessibility is often treated as a separate conversation. It’s discussed as a legal requirement, a technical checklist, or something organizations think about only when someone asks for an accommodation. Rarely do we talk about accessibility as a core ingredient of belonging itself.
In this episode, Tonya Kubo sits down with learning experience designer and online education expert Dr. Catrina Mitchum to challenge that perspective. Drawing from nearly two decades of experience teaching adults online, Catrina offers a broader and more human-centered view of accessibility—one that has implications far beyond online courses.
Because accessibility isn’t just about whether someone can get through the door. It’s about whether they can participate once they’re inside.
Episode Highlights
- [03:15] Why accessibility is really about belonging
- [08:20] Expanding accessibility beyond captions, ramps, and compliance
- [19:30] The role cognitive load plays in learning and participation
- [24:40] Why learners need to understand the purpose behind what they’re doing
- [30:15] How accessibility strengthens communities and invites diverse expertise
- [44:15] The simple question that can make any space more welcoming: “What would make this a pleasant experience?”
Accessibility Is Bigger Than Most People Think
When most people hear the word accessibility, they immediately think about accommodations for people with disabilities. That’s understandable because those conversations matter and deserve attention. But one of the most interesting parts of this discussion is how quickly Catrina expands the definition beyond what many of us expect.
Accessibility isn’t only about whether someone can technically access information. It’s about whether they can meaningfully participate in the experience you’ve created.
Think about all the different ways people arrive in our communities, courses, workshops, and events. Some are navigating disabilities. Others are balancing caregiving responsibilities, language barriers, unfamiliar technology, cultural differences, financial constraints, or simply a lack of prior experience with the topic at hand. Even something as simple as never having attached a file to an email before can become a barrier when everyone else assumes it’s common knowledge.
The challenge for community builders isn’t anticipating every possible circumstance. That’s impossible. The challenge is recognizing that our own experience isn’t universal.
As Catrina points out, people don’t arrive through the same door. They bring different histories, different assumptions, and different ways of making sense of the world. When we design only for people who think, learn, and participate the way we do, we’re unintentionally making participation harder for everyone else.
That’s why accessibility matters so much in community building. It invites us to stop asking, “Can people get in?” and start asking, “Can people fully participate once they’re here?”
026 – Building Online Spaces That Include Everyone with Dr. Catrina Mitchum Share on X
Friction Is Often the Real Barrier
One of the ideas that stood out most in this conversation is the concept of cognitive load.
Learning is inherently challenging. By definition, learning requires us to engage with something unfamiliar. But what often makes learning frustrating isn’t the material itself. It’s all the extra obstacles surrounding it.
Maybe the instructions aren’t clear. Maybe the activity feels disconnected from the outcome. Maybe the technology is confusing. Maybe participants are spending so much energy figuring out what they’re supposed to do that they don’t have any energy left to actually learn.
Catrina argues that many accessibility challenges are really friction challenges. People aren’t failing because they’re incapable. They’re struggling because the experience asks them to carry too many things at once.
That’s an important distinction because it shifts our focus away from fixing people and toward improving environments.
The best educators, facilitators, and community leaders understand that reducing unnecessary friction benefits everyone. Clear instructions help everyone. Thoughtful organization helps everyone. Providing context helps everyone. Explaining why something matters helps everyone.
Accessibility isn’t always about adding more resources or creating elaborate accommodations. Sometimes it’s about removing obstacles that never needed to be there in the first place.
026 – Building Online Spaces That Include Everyone with Dr. Catrina Mitchum Share on X
The Best Communities Remove Obstacles to Participation
One of the moments in this conversation that feels especially relevant to community builders is when Catrina talks about expertise.
When you’re building a community, you’re not supposed to be the only expert in the room.
In fact, if you’re the only expert in the room, something may be missing.
Healthy communities thrive because people bring different experiences, perspectives, and knowledge. The value isn’t created by a single leader. It’s created by the collective wisdom of the group. But that only works when people feel able to participate.
If barriers exist—whether they’re technological, cultural, emotional, or logistical—then valuable voices often remain unheard.
What makes this perspective so powerful is that it reframes accessibility as an investment in the community itself. When more people can engage, contribute, and succeed, the community becomes stronger. New ideas emerge. Different perspectives surface. Members learn from one another rather than relying entirely on the person leading the room.
That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because someone intentionally designed an environment where participation feels possible.
Community leaders often focus on attracting people into a space. Accessibility reminds us that getting people into the room is only the first step. The real work is creating conditions where they can fully contribute once they arrive.
026 – Building Online Spaces That Include Everyone with Dr. Catrina Mitchum Share on X
Belonging Begins With Asking Better Questions
One of the reasons accessibility can feel overwhelming is because there’s no finish line.
There will always be another perspective to consider, another barrier to remove, another improvement to make. For perfectionists, that realization can feel discouraging. If you’ll never get it completely right, why start?
But Catrina offers a different perspective.
The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is progress.
You don’t need to anticipate every need before you begin. You don’t need to redesign everything overnight. You don’t need a perfect solution before taking the next step.
What you do need is curiosity.
Throughout the conversation, Catrina returns to a surprisingly simple idea: ask people what they need.
That sounds obvious, but many of us skip that step. We assume. We guess. We try to solve problems on behalf of people without inviting them into the conversation.
One of her favorite questions is: “What would make this a pleasant experience?”
It’s such a simple question, but it communicates something powerful. It tells people their experience matters. It invites participation instead of making assumptions. And often, it reveals needs that would have otherwise remained invisible.
At its heart, accessibility is an act of care. It’s the willingness to recognize that other people experience the world differently than we do and to create space for those differences rather than expecting everyone to adapt.
That’s also what belonging requires.
Because belonging isn’t created when everyone fits into the same mold. Belonging is created when people can show up as they are and still participate fully.
026 – Building Online Spaces That Include Everyone with Dr. Catrina Mitchum Share on X
Belonging Requires Access
What makes this conversation so compelling is that it’s ultimately about much more than courses, transcripts, or technology.
It’s about how we treat people.
It’s about whether we create environments that expect people to work around barriers or environments that actively remove them. It’s about whether we see accessibility as a burden or as an opportunity to invite more people into the conversation.
And perhaps most importantly, it’s about recognizing that belonging doesn’t happen automatically.
Belonging requires access.
The more intentional we become about reducing friction, increasing participation, and listening to the needs of others, the more likely we are to create communities where people don’t just show up—they truly feel like they belong.
026 – Building Online Spaces That Include Everyone with Dr. Catrina Mitchum Share on X
Freak Flags Fly
Each episode ends with five quick questions. Here’s how Catrina flies her flag:
- You’re my kind of freak if… you’ve won a trophy for reading.
- Something you love that friends don’t get: spreadsheets.
- Community you’d infiltrate: a community representing the full spectrum of neurodiversity.
- Practice that keeps you connected: writing every morning with a cup of coffee nearby.
- Someone doing freakishly good work who deserves a bigger stage: people helping others navigate life transitions without abandoning parts of themselves in the process.
Meet Our Guest
Dr. Catrina Mitchum is on a mission to revolutionize the online course creation space. A recovering academic who has been teaching adults online since 2009, she combines her expertise in learning experience design, instructional strategy, and accessibility to help overwhelmed small business owners create courses that actually support learner success. Through her work, Catrina helps aspiring course creators build engaging, accessible learning experiences that prioritize people over perfection.
Meet Your Host
Tonya Kubo is a community strategist, writer, and rebel with a cause: helping people find the place where they truly belong. She’s spent nearly two decades building online spaces that feel more like chosen family than comment sections, and she’s not afraid to call out the fluff in favor of real connection. As the founder of Find Your Freaks, Tonya brings together unconventional thinkers, builders, and bridge-makers who believe that “normal” was never the point. When she’s not hosting the show, she’s raising two daughters, leading client communities, and making meaning out of the mess.
Episode Transcript
Get the full transcript from Episode 26.
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What’s Next
In the next episode, Tonya builds on her conversation with Dr. Catrina Mitchum by exploring how accessibility extends far beyond compliance. She unpacks what it means to remove barriers, reduce friction, and create communities where more people can truly belong.
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