People with disabilities may have various challenges that can affect their ability to use the internet and access online content. The goal of website accessibility is to ensure that everyone, including individuals with disabilities, can access and interact with the content and functionality of a website with ease and without barriers.
For organizations, it’s not only a legal and ethical responsibility but it’s also beneficial for business, as it opens up content and services to a larger audience.
In this episode, we discuss the term ‘accessibility’ and why it’s so important in web design, with Sue Irving, Senior User Experience Designer, Lucie Farrington, UX Researcher and Rachel Wright, Senior UX Researcher at The Very Group.
Hear them discuss how organizations can create more inclusive digital experiences that accommodate a broader range of users, regardless of their abilities.
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Join our community to find a supportive network, opportunities, guidance and jobs, so you can excel in your tech career.
hello everyone thank you for tuning in again I am Kaye bitman the content director at CH can code and today we are
discussing what is website accessibility and why is it so important people with
disabilities may have various challenges that can affect their ability to use the internet and access online content the
goal of website accessibility is to ensure that everyone including individuals with disabilities can access
and interact with the content and functionality of a website with e and without barriers so in this episode we
discuss the term accessibility and why it’s so important in web design with my
fabulous guest for today Sue Irving senior user experien designer Lucy
farington ux researcher and Rachel Wright Senior ux researcher all from the
very group welcome ladies thank you all so much for joining me today welcome welcome to spilling the tea hi than for
having us hi um we’ve got so much to discuss in this
uh episode and it is an absolute treat to have three ladies from the very group with us today so we’re going to get cracking um on a bit of background about
each of you that’s okay um Sue should we start start with you please yeah of
course um yeah so I’m Sue I’m a senior ux designer at the very group as you said um my background really is you know
I spent around 30 years in design actually but I transitioned over into ux in about 2016
um and I my first role was like a junior ux designer over at the BBC so I worked
on children’s games um and then moved into the voice and AI space so that’s where like I really started to think
about accessibility there and then I’ve been at the very group since
2021 now yeah two and a half years that’s me really my background you cut
your teeth at the BBC that must have been quite a baptism of fire to start a new ex design it was it was it was
fantastic actually absolutely love the BBC and the time I spent there and like I say that was like really picked my
interest in accessibility and learning much more about it yeah yeah Fab and
Lucy yourself yeah so hi everyone so I am fairly early in my career Journey so
this is my first job post uning um in terms of how I got into kind of this space I actually did a placement year at
the very group as part of my degree so I did a a sandwich a sandwich year I think it’s called um so my degree was in
marketing um but I joined the very group as a customer experience intern so what
that meant was I had a rotating role of like all the jobs within the digital space and then I got to choose who I
stuck with and it was ux um and yeah came back came back after uni as a ux researcher and I love it amazing I love
a lot of things that you just said because you said you did a placement which lots of our community always wonder about whether they should be
doing the value um uh in that and you ended up with a really good job at the end at a really good company so that’s
fantastic to hear and something that I know our listeners um would really love to hear um and also that uh you weren’t
techie techy did you think that you were gonna fall into the te well now you back you say and people ask you my mom always
used to say that to me she’s like I’ve never understood what you what you do working in Tech you’re one of those
people yeah absolutely like I’m in terms like education wise I’ve always been
quite a creative person like I love uh textiles and things like that but I
didn’t realize how creative research can be as a role you know you can we can really kind of
design how we uh speak to customers and we can be quite creative with how we do
it that way so yeah I wasn’t expecting to work in the tech space but I do really like it and in terms of a
placement year I would advise anyone to do it it’s the best thing I ever did good really good advice that is I
know um I we get asked that so much on our live webinars um that we do monthly and a lot of the questions that come in
are about work placements um and the value that you get from them so it’s good that we’ve got another person that
can um uh uh vouch for that and Rachel yourself hi I’m Rachel uh I guess my my
path was a little bit different actually so I spent a long time in my career in financial services uh I used to get
involved in kind of the more traditional research so surveys focus groups Etc
um I got made redundant from there and I decided to do a master’s degree and it
was in information and Library management but actually because it’s all digital now H we learned a lot about
kind of information architecture content Management Systems um so I really got
interested in ux um and once I’d finished my uh degree or my masters I
then went to work back again in financial services but it was to focus on we had a great big database with
frequently asking questions all the keywords were wrong Etc we just had to clean all that up and then um I started
working with my now manager but in a different organization and we started talking about kind of ux and the
research side of it so we set up our own lab um and so for the past kind of 10
years I’ve been involved in in specifically kind of ux research and four of those have been spent in in very
so yeah amazing I love the fact so you said you were made redundant and then you just decided to go on a do a masters
and how sometimes one door closes and several others opened for you definitely definitely I I I i’ tell anybody to just
be brave and take a leap don’t be worried about doing something different and you often think of some of the
technical subjects as being a bit scary I didn’t realize how technical we would get but it’s not coding but actually
there’s still kind of a lot of stuff that you can learn and we’re a digital world these days so we definitely all
need to kind of get involved in in that aspect yes definitely um so you’ve all
got incredibly interesting stories of how you came into Tech and also what you do now and levels of um levels in within
your own company as well so this is going to be a really interesting conversation um today we’re going to talk a little bit about
accessibility um which is something that we haven’t had on the podcast uh as yet and something that is so important um so
it’s I’m so pleased that we’re finally discussing it on the podcast um so accessibility in web design is a term
that people may have heard of but may not understand uh can we start can you
give a brief explanation of what it means so that is a really good question
actually and I think I think it’s really important how we frame what we mean by
accessibility so accessibility it doesn’t mean disability um it’s actually
a way of if we think about how we build our digital products our websites our
mobile apps um our services um and we need to support flexible interactions
for our different user needs so we need to give people a choice of how they want to interact with us um so these could be
permanent it could be temporary or it could be situational so what do we mean by that that kind of like permanent we
could be you know it could be uh situational could be to do with touch it might be a new parent carrying a child
with one arm and when we talk talk about um people hearing it might be that you’re in a noisy place and you haven’t
got your earphones you could be on a train or a tram um and also you know it could be like if somebody’s speaking it
could be somebody might have like laryngitis and can’t really talk and so it’s all about those different user
access needs and I think Microsoft do a really good in infographic that we could share and which which really kind of
helps helps talk about that um and I think as well when you think about um
accessibility see I working at the BBC like I was traditionally I was always
like accessibility was wheelchairs ramps subtitles all those things that we think
of in the physical world so I don’t think that’s an uncommon way to think of things but that’s how I thought because
I was just I didn’t have any any you know background as to to think about digital
accessibility and it can be quite complex and it can be quite off personing as well and I always think of
it as around it’s like Lin and a for language you’ve got to practice to be to be any good at it um but for me my first
steps into it really was thinking about it as four pillars and one was um Vision
so we want to make it easy to see uh cognitive we want to make it easy to
understand motor we want it to be easy to interact with and hearing we want to
make it easy to hear that’s quite simplistic but it’s a really good starting point to um you know to think
about it in that that way it is quite complex and it it can be quite be quite difficult but yeah it’s like learning a
language the the more you do the better you get at it yeah I you know what I hadn’t you said something I hadn’t even
thought of that you do immediately think of disability and you’re right when you
were at BBC that would be access and wheelchair access and and actually some of the the the the ways that you
describe that then just just even you know hearing you might be someone that’s really noisy that’s that’s nothing to do
with disability that’s such a misconception about accessibility of websites and and I know it came up
recently on social media there was a lot of chat about accessibility um on social media recently and I think again it was
all it was all everybody was the conversation was focused again around disabilities um whereas actually when
you work in ux design you’re you’re not thinking in that way at all you’re thinking of everybody yeah um and in
terms of examples soe you gave some some great ones there can between us between
you can you give us some examples you know kind of how do you how do you do that at the very group like what what are some examples what are some of the
things that you do um in your day-to-day to to improve accessibility I think if we go back to
kind of Basics and we think about people kind of using the web we have a lot of um customers though or we have a lot of
staff that think of screen readers so having to kind of navigate through that website so screen readers will use voice
synthesizes to kind of read out content on a computer screen H but as well as kind of picking up the words it also
reads out features so this is a menu this is a search bar and it can even
explain kind of what’s contained within that image H but we’ve learned through our research that there are various
types of assistive technology that people use so not just screen readers so they might use alternative navigation
and this is whereby they could use their own voice to control kind of what they’re looking at or what they want to
see um they might use either eye movement to navigate around a page on a
website they might just want to zoom into the page um so in terms of how kind
of that image or whatever they’re looking at renders the text it has to still be clear to them um we know that
people have various different types of devices that they use so um even on your
own mobile device there is a range of settings for access ability so it could use voice over um even for uh motion so
it could dim kind of um any sort of images that are flashing or strobing
features for people with kind of epilepsy say um it could have a LED sort
of flash for an alert of a notification because they are hard up hearing and
they can’t hear that and because of all of those things that we need to take into consideration when we are
recruiting our participants at Berry we have a range of tools and one of the companies that we use is called Fable
and they have dedicated people who test on their behalf the things that we’re
sending them so we can make sure we’re not just kind of taking a gamble on when
we’re doing recruitment of getting people with all of the that use all of these different types of um kind of
other types of Technologies but we are guaranteeing that are speaking to those individuals that are using them uh on a
day on a day-to-day basis really talk about examples I’m thinking obviously somebody that hasn’t ever worked in ux
this is all incredibly new to me is that has it been has that been I mean like
Rachel in your job have you been have you known about this for some time and working on it for some time this is something that obviously us as users we
don’t know or is that unique to the very group and you know do other people know
about this I don’t think it’s Unique and I think the the thing that really sparked it for us was Sue joining and
the passion that she had um it’s very easy to kind of fall into that sort of
thing whereby you think oh it doesn’t affect me or H I heard somebody say once
that you can’t be what you can’t see so it’s not up the front of your mind and
kind of when sort of Sue came in um she had a real passion for it and it kind of
flourished from there um I guess kind of Sue from your perspective as well from
sort of your background but also kind of any sort of regulatory requirements can you tell us a bit more about
those I think um it’s definitely a team game it’s defin it’s you know thank you raach for saying that it’s really kind
but it’s definitely a team game um and I think there’s we’ve had like a bit of a catalyst in terms of being able to focus
more on accessibility because we’re going through a tech migration we’re in quite a a unique position um there is um
you know we were again I worked at the BBC where accessibility was at the Forefront of everything and I know I was
in quite a lucky position to be able to to focus in on things so with that um
coming to the very group we’ve been lucky enough to focus on building out
our new tech migration our new tech St and we’re building out a you know components in a new design system and
we’re working towards wag guidelines level 2.1
AA um so it’s web content accessibility guidelines is wiag now that’s just been
updated to 2.2 so we’re currently going back and like revisiting what we need to
do in order to make our you know our standards you know meet that that standard of Wick had
2.2 now ironically I believe the wiad guidelines are quite inaccessible
because they’re written in quite legally Global language and they can be
misinterpreted and you know then they’re they’re not an easy read they’re really not and and that’s okay as long as
people understand that you know just because you don’t fully understand it like don’t don’t feel too bad about that
um but there are some like wider resources um and documentation that are much more easy to understand I I believe
and like we we you know we share this with our colleagues as well um do dog UK
is a really good one to kind of start focusing in on it it’s much more plain language and I always give kaap a shout
out because I think Co-op have done an amazing content design job around their
accessibility guidelines so at you know gov.uk and Co-op are some really some
places to go for starters I guess but like I said we we’re in a really unique
position here at very because we’re we’re about to undergo this you know we’re working through this migration um
of our Tech platform and you know our um our director uh and the company have
made it a key PR you know one of our main principles for Tech migration is that we’re you know we’re going to be uh
Wick Haag 2.2 uh AA accessible amazing and yes
because I wanted to ask you about guidelines and standards if you are a designer listening to this I I I suppose
that’s the best place to get started at you can’t really go wrong if you’re moving in that direction but there’s no
sort of Industry overarching standard or guidelines at the moment I would say
wiag is a global global standard um and if you start to research that like I say
wiag 2.2 has just come out but there’s a whole host of things around 2.1 and it’s
a really good starting point that’s generally what um globally what people um that’s the standard that people are
hoping to meet yeah and in terms of the very group obviously you’re doing a lot
of work around accessibility can you tell us a little bit about the work that the very group is doing to improve its
website accessibility are there certain projects that you’ve been working on can you tell us a little bit about you know
the things that we already see and should expect maybe more of on your website yeah definitely so I think just
to kind of start off we’ve got a really open culture here at Barry so it’s not
something we’ve always had but it’s something that we really are working towards in terms of everyone is on the
same page about how important it is for our website to be accessible to everyone
I think as Sue said we’re in a very unique position in terms of we migrating all our take over um so it’s given us
kind of that that lead way to really focus on building the right thing for our customers um I think it’s really
important to to note that the responsibility of accessibility isn’t
just down to an individual person or an indiv idual team it’s down to everyone to do their bit and I think it’s it’s
kind of easy to kind of focus it on the ux designers because they’re designing the actual look and feel of the page but
there’s a lot of elements that kind of go into building an accessible experience so in terms of at Berry um if
anyone notices an issue with accessibility or notices anything or has a question about something on site we do
have a accessibility slack Channel um so things can be flagged in there as
researchers we’ve also got a spreadsheet of issues that we’ve spotted um mainly in our Fable research um to ensure that
everything is documented um and then also going forward we’ve got a design system here at at ver so this is
basically a collection of reusable components Guided by these clear standards that can be assembled together
to build any number of applications or websites so we kind of outline the size that ahead of should be the size of the
body set should be what buttons should look like what secondary buttons should look like things like that so this the
accessibility is at the Forefront of our design system so the developers and the testers that are using it and the
designers um they have access to things how things should be built and how they should work and they can also question
that as well if you know if they they don’t think that’s the right way then we’ve got a very open feedback culture as well um in terms of from a research
perspec Ive it is our job to Ed educate other parts of the business based on feedback that we get in our research
sessions um I don’t know if rate if you want to talk a bit more about Fable and
the participants on that tool yeah so Fable the participants at the moment are
based in Canada and America which is an ideal but because of the nature of our business which is primarily kind of
shopping everybody kind of shops onl online but these participants have got very different setups and their setup
might depend depend on which device that they’re using as well um so we have kind of so many credits but we have access to
experts um over there as well if we have kind of any questions about anything
it’s really important that the kind of we do this type of research because although there are guidelines in place
until you actually witness somebody going through a journey and the complications that they might have and
somebody who is zooming in on text versus using a screen reader versus
using some form of alternative navigation they’ve all got different requirements and they may be faced with
different problems but it brings those issues to life when you see an actual
person having an issue with it rather than uh QA testing it for example um the
other things that we’re trying to do not just kind of from dcx is point of view so thinking about kind of the digital uh
journey is we’ve been reaching out to other organizations so Sue’s reached out
to the BBC and Co-op we’ve also had um autot Trader come in and give us kind of
a talk on the types of things that they’re doing so we’re trying to learn from others we have set up our own
network within um the very Group which is called very accessible um so we’re
trying to kind of have an open uh conversation about some of the issues and the problems but also to make sure
that we are kind of creating um understanding in um across kind of uh
that there are different people with different needs and these aren’t as few and far between as you think because
once we get to a certain age people’s uh Vision won’t be brilliant people’s Mobility won’t be great people’s um
hearing isn’t great either so this could be age related and not just something necessarily that you’re born with or but
has been has happened kind of sort of uh later on in life um we also have a
diversity and inclusion team within uh very so we’ve done some work for those
but it’s trying to gel all of the different pieces of of the organization
together so we’re all basically thinking along the same lines and encouraging
others to to think of all of our users and not just those that don’t have those
additional kind of access Deeds yeah I so both of you Rachel and Lucy you you
both actually just mentioned um so much about collaboration Rachel you were talking about collaborating with other
companies as well which is is a great thing in learning from each other and Luca you were talking about collaborating internally with different
teams and it’s everybody’s effort and I think I I love the fact that you both said that because in Tech you hear a lot
of you get in Tech you work very siloed and that is kind of your job and it’s a very there’s a big misconception about
coming into the tech industry that you don’t work really with other teams and other people and it’s kind of you just
sitting you’re very technical you probably codee for a living and that’s all you do um actually you know the area
that you work in you just mentioned you must have lots of soft skills that come up from that and lots of you know
communication skills they’re not technical skills um and actually you you you know come into a role and get to
collaborate internally and externally by sounds of it with lots of other companies did did you all think it was
going to be like that when you came into Tech or did did you think what what is a role going to be like in in this area or
did you know you were going to be collaborating with that many people I mean I think that in terms of
collaboration I wasn’t too sure I think the the the way that Tech is now is very different to what it was preo so
thinking about when we work in the office we used to see each other all the time um so I did my placement year in
2018 so I was based in the office however I came back in 2020 which was kind of a a virtual world and I was
really nervous because the team had changed a little bit um and I was you know I was nervous about being you know
a full-fledged researcher rather than just you know Lo to the intern um but it
it’s actually been been fantastic in terms of you know popping on calls I
mean we do see each other in the office a lot more now but I think the fact that we do have tools Like Fable that are
digital it just allows us to share and catch up with people a lot more yeah and it’s as you said it’s um just having the
ability to work across lots of teams um and coming back in 2020 must have been quite an experience for you yeah it’s a
bit weird it sounds like you tackled that challenge well um for our listeners um
you know staying on the uh route of careers uh a lot of our listeners they might be considering a career in web
design um is there any advice you would share with them about familiarizing uh themselves in the area of web design
yeah I think I would just say online there is so much information out there and so many resources so as Sue said you
know there are the wiad guidelines you can look at there’s the gov UK website the co-op’s Fantastic um it the co-op
one’s great because it’s really interactive and really easy to digest as well um there’s also experts that are
worth following so there’s Tony milen there’s hassle inclusion and there’s also a website called ability net who
also provides training uh resource um and I think as as re touched on
before you know we’ve learned so much by reaching out to other teams on social media um following people on LinkedIn is
a great starting point we’ve actually done knowledge shares with other businesses like autot Trader which was
fantastic to see kind of how they they share their knowledge in terms of accessibility um Google Lighthouse is I
think it’s called Google Lighthouse um they can like process reports on how web
pages are performing and that’s a really good starting point just to kind of understand the the code behind things
because obviously I’m not technical at all so just being able to understand how the code and the visual Parts go hand in
hand but I think I would just emphasize you know don’t worry about knowing everything I think everyone is in the
same position at the minute where we’re all learning and you know don’t put so much pressure on yourself to just know
everything because that’s impossible that just brilliant advice and I think you hear that often especially from um
ladies I have a lot of guests on here who when they move into a new role or even leadership role the first thing I
think is I’m expected to know everything and uh everybody’s looking at me to have the answers for everything and which as
you said is is definitely not the case and um you mentioned there’s some brilliant resources that you can uh draw
upon to to keep learning I think as well that we’re trying to view it as not just a certain teams or a certain person’s
kind of responsibility it’s really important to kind of of have that open culture but don’t just stop with a
digital Journey either so I guess from ourselves we would need to also
understand if we can improve that digital journey by speaking to people who have issues kind of Elsewhere so say
for instance how do we deal with customers on the phone um who are hard
of hearing or have kind of additional sort of needs or requirements we offer
delivery options whereby we have people take items to somebody’s house um or they’ve
got to go and pick up a collect plus parcel could we improve our digital journey by uh enabling people who are
providing that information to us so we can pick that up at the other end so before we even deliver an item we know
that this person needs help with that item going upstairs or um their kind of
nonverbal so potentially we have to communicate with them or we understand that when we’re communic unting uh kind
of with them that you know they they need to write down or they have a different way of communicating so it’s
it it’s kind of encompassing all of that and not just thinking about kind of the
coding aspect of it but it use the code to improve the journey if that makes
sense yeah definitely even the the the foundations behind what you’re researching and and um you know
improving accessibility you’re absolutely right it’s you can definitely use that in other areas
uh throughout the business and which obviously would you know just be beneficial for for everybody it’s
because if you’re at a company that is um has a good culture that can allow that and is very open then then why not
um yeah absolutely I would say to everybody to be aware of the world
around them so I think I started to pick up for it more because uh my mom’s
Mobility is not great so we have to take her out in a wheelchair you don’t realize how bad access is into buildings
or into bathrooms just until you start moving somebody around like that and then it
makes you start to think well how do people manage with a push chair when they’ve got kind of M or how do people
manage when they’ve got bags and bags of shopping um it’s it’s just having that
awareness and I think once you start to develop that awareness that makes you realize how do we improve these things
and it’s not just the physical side of it but it’s also kind of the digital side of it that that could potentially
help even if it’s just getting feedback on your site or understanding from those
that it affects what what would what could we do to improve things for you
yeah yeah agree once it’s at the Forefront of your mind whether it’s something that you’re doing in everyday life or you have a Sue that comes into
your company and says hey I think we should all take notice of this just somebody putting it at the Forefront of your mind you’re going to think about it
in all areas um from from now on I even know after this conversation I’m going to be thinking about it in many parts of
my life from now on um I’m wanted to ask you a little bit about interviewing um
if somebody’s interviewing for a role on your team and they mention projects uh where they’ve improved accessibility um
would this make them stand out as a candidate to you or or is it just something that you kind of just expect
from web designers when they’re interviewing with you nowadays um so I definitely think that they would stand
out so they would be viewed kind of positively but I think the most important thing I think we’d all agree
with this is for them to have a passion to want to make a difference and if they don’t have any experience but they’ve
gone away and they’ve educated themselves they’ve got this awareness they want to improve things and that
they are thinking about accessibility when they are designing um or coding
even and it could be like me that it’s to do more with their life experiences
as well as their work experiences so I think this is just coming to the front
whereby people are more aware of accessibility but they might not have had that opportunity within the organization that they’re working for so
it’s not that they wouldn’t be viewed positively if they didn’t have any work experience but they if they have the
passion and they have the that consideration within their designs then
that’s definitely going to be viewed more positively than somebody somebody that doesn’t and I suppose as well if if
somebody just sort of name drops or just drops in the word accessibility you’re going to know that’s not a passion you
want to see some kind of project or something you know it’s just that people might think oh it’s a good buzz word to
drop into an interview you’re gonna see right through that right yeah and I think that passion will take you you
know it can take you far you know this isn’t easy this is It’s Tricky it’s difficult you know you you’re trying to
you know get people on board we’ve got a we’ve just created a very accessible like Champions Network within very you
know it’s not easy so that passion can take you a a long way you know so that
can keep you going sometimes when you know it’s sometimes it might feel easy to give up but yeah it it’ll take you
quite farther you know you’ve got to care about it yes definitely um and we touched upon this a little bit earlier
Rachel you were talking about um uh accessibility not just um within digital but but in all aspects of life and I
suppose what I I want to know is improving accessibility is good for everybody right businesses included and
and and everybody right it’s kind of a it’s kind kind of an non-b brainer in a nutshell
yeah I think yes you know there’s there’s
a there’s a survey that was done in I think it was 2019 called the clickaway
pound survey um so this is this is from a business perspective but the online
spending power of people with access needs in the UK at that point was 24.8 billion pounds so I can only imagine in
the past few years that increased um 86% of the users would
spend more if there were fewer barriers and 83% of them with access needs limit
their shopping to sites that they know are accessible I think not only um in
terms of being able to use the website but it also benefits things things for the business like SEO and things like
that so I think it’s just really important as a business to make sure that we treat people fairly and make
sure that they can access all the information they need on our website so they can buy the things that they want
you know we I had a fable participant um a couple of weeks ago and she was asked
to find herself I think it was a dress or something like that and she said you know even though I am blind I do still
want to look nice I still like certain Fabrics I like certain colors and I want to be able to find something that’s
right for me and I think that is that is really important you know we want them to feel nice in their new dresses and
and whatnot so yeah yeah agree it is good for business and it is good for those um individuals as
well as you say and even the fact that you as a as the very group collaborate with other businesses as well it kind of
it makes business sense for everybody to share um to to share uh your experiences
and to to move forward together um I I completely agree um we’re almost out of
time ladies it is flying by but uh I would like to know what more can organizations do to make their websites
more accessible if there was kind of a checklist that you bought just companies could just get cracking on what what
would that be it’s kind of having that open culture and making sure that it
doesn’t just stop with the digital Journey um and speaking to
everybody that you need to that has all of those customer touch points when we’re dealing with customers so there’s
a consistent story that we’re telling as well you mentioned as well um sorry L I
think it was l you mentioned earlier about uh uh just bringing in the feedback culture there um uh Rachel you
said open culture and Lucy earlier you said a good feedback culture that’s incredibly important as well isn’t it
because if something isn’t working or you don’t want to be the person that’s always pointing out you know what I
think that’s wrong or that’s wrong you know it’s kind of it’s important to have a really good feedback culture where it
doesn’t come across like you’re criticizing a team for saying why haven’t we done that or this is obvious
yeah definitely and I think like when particularly when we’re playing playing back research we do try and talk through
the positives as well you know how easily someone has got through a certain page or when when a participant goes
through a Fab study um it they answer a series of 10 questions at the end of the
process and that creates something called an a US score which kind of rates the accessibility of that experience and
you know when that’s really good we’ll talk about that and say you know this is above the average for fables a US scores
and I think as well just making sure that people have have that understanding that it’s not accessibility isn’t
something that’s ever done it’s not something that we can finish we can’t take it off and be like oh yeah we’ve done accessibility now let’s go on to
the next thing you know we can’t wave our magic W and say you know hold on and
I think you know as long as you’re going in the right direction that’s the most important thing and I think that’s what we need to kind of keep communicating um
Team wide really yeah yeah yeah and picking up on what Lucy was saying as well nobody ever
sets out to building an accessible website you know nobody ever that’s nobody’s aim to do that so I think
communication is is is really key and having that open open culture learning culture we’re all learning at the same
time you know we’re all on this same Learning Journey there’s no experts here you know and what we want to improve all
our knowledge together I think one thing for me from a design point of view is a design system is a great way to
encourage that consistency um from a design and a creative lens as well so we
you know we have ux reviews we have uh design crits and we’ll look at each other’s work and we’ll start asking
those questions have you considered this have you considered that we we’ve made it a really safe psychological space to
share our work and know that um everybody just wants the best for each other and for the company as well to
make sure that we’re designing the right things the the one thing that really really stuck out to me as a designer
which I heard a few years ago at the BBC was that again talk mind accessibility
and impairments people have impairments we’ve all got different impairments I’m wearing glasses you know so people do
have impairments but we only disable them when we don’t get things right and I think that’s a really powerful
message yes definitely and I I completely agree and I love the facts as
well obviously we advocate for diversity in the workforce that she can code and the importance of diversity and uh
diversity and fault because what has been really interesting today about our conversation is um you’re all from
different backgrounds you all have different experience and together you all collectively come together um to to
to work together to to ensure um that you are more mindful of people’s needs
if you worked on a Workforce where it was everybody was from the same background with you probably wouldn’t be
moving forward as as as fast as you are in terms of accessibility would you I I think kind of you’re absolutely right
it’s kind of the mix of people and the different skill sets and the different experiences in life um Sue and I are
relatively close in age uh Lucy’s obviously kind of much younger we all bring different things to
the table and our very accessible Network obviously there’s Us in there there’s other designers there are uh
developers in there there are testers in there we all bring something different
to the table and I think that’s the most important thing and I know that there are probably people listening to this
who are in much smaller organizations they might feel a bit daunted by all of
this but even as a larger organization we are still learning all the time I
would still say that we are relatively new to this a lot of us uh some more experienced than others um but it’s it’s
it’s never kind of sitting on your Laurel thinking that oh we’ve got this we know all of this one of the most
important things to us is actually speaking to those people and getting feedback from the people whose lives are
impacted by this and that’s what’s really important as well as kind of understanding your regulations as well
as seeing what other companies out there are doing it’s really kind of getting that that feedback from people who whose
lives are just affected by it dayt day yeah yeah wonderful well that is a
lovely positive note to end it on um thank you so much ladies Sue Lucy and
Rachel thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy days at the very group to come and have a chat with me today um and share your insights thank
you so much very wel thank you listeners as always thank you so much for joining us and we hope to see you again next
time
