Speaker Guide

codebar Speaker Guide

codebar is always striving to be the most inclusive place in tech. A place where every attendee feels welcome and safe. This speaker guide has been put together by our community and is for anyone who gives a talk, workshop, or appears on a panel at a codebar event.

Audience

The codebar audience is typically people new to the tech industry or junior developers, so please be mindful of this when putting your presentation together. Anything too technical may not be understood by our community.

One phrase we like to live by at codebar is “Assume no knowledge, but infinite intelligence”.

Terminology

Terminology is important when speaking at codebar so please ensure you are using inclusive language. Below is a list of things we you should to avoid. 

• He/Him/She/Her

  • Never assume someone’s gender, if you are unsure ask. If you can’t ask, use they/them.

• Guys 

  • Instead use everyone, people, or folks.

• Blacklist, Black hat (hacker), Blackmail, Black mark

  • Substitute Blacklist for Blocklist, Black hat for Malicious, Black mark for just mark

• Crazy/Mental/Insane/Mad/Nuts

  • Instead use wild, kooky, wacky

• OCD

  • Terms like “bipolar,” “OCD” and “ADD” are descriptors of real psychiatric disabilities that people actually possess. They are not metaphors for everyday behaviors.

• Sexy

  • Nothing in tech should ever be described as sexy! Period!

• Ninja/Rockstar

  • No one in tech is a ninja or rockstar. You could potentially say rockstar team, but no-one person is a rockstar or ninja.

• Manpower/man-hours/man the table

  • Essentially anything that starts with man, we are trying to be inclusive so instead use person-powered, person-hours ETC.

• Easy/straightforward/simple

  • Please avoid describing technical concepts or implementations as these things. They may be easy for you, but may not for someone watching and that can make them feel rubbish.

Presentation Content

If you are using slides during your presentation please ensure you include content warnings if you are about to discuss a topic that could be triggering for an audience member. Some examples include;

• Sexual Assault

• Abuse

• Child abuse/pedophilia/incest

• Animal cruelty or animal death

• Self-harm and suicide

• Eating disorders, body hatred, and fatphobia

• Violence

• Pornographic content

Also, include a content warning if you are about to include a slide with lots of flashing lights. 

Presentation Tips

Further things to note if you’re giving a presentation:

• Ensure that there is sufficient contrast on your slides for those who have colour vision deficiency. A good article on this topic.

• Related to the above topic, do not use colour as the only method for distinguishing information. In addition to colour, you can use shape, size, shading, fill/outline, etc.

• Ensure the font size is at least 28px

• Try to avoid walls of text if you can, as this is hard to read

• Avoid using acronyms (it’s likely people listening may not know them, so this raises the barrier to entry for people joining the industry)

• Many presentation tools e.g. Google Slides allows you to add live captions as you speak, please do this if you can. 

• If you’re using Terminal or giving code example, please increase the font size so people can read it clearly

• If you can wear headphones, as you will sound clearer 

If there is something in this doc that you are unsure of, or want to check with us, please ask. Drop us an email [email protected].