APM Webinar hosted by the Thames Valley Branch on 14 March 2024. Speaker: Jade Matos Carew, Head of Digital, Accessibility and Usability, The Open University What is digital accessibility? (Spoiler: it’s making sure we design and develop websites, systems, and digital content and experiences which are accessible by everyone – including disabled users.) This webinar was held on 14 March 2024. We took a look at the principles behind it and why it’s vital (and often overlooked) in today’s organisations. We thought about how it can benefit staff, clients and customers, and how ensuring best practice in digital accessibility can act as a strong foundation to help to foster an inclusive and diverse organisational culture. We also considered the practical challenges which are faced when embedding best practice in digital accessibility into ways of working, and how applying change management principles can provide an effective toolkit for approaching and assisting with this. The Equality Act (2010) broadly protects certain characteristics, including the rights of disabled people so that everyone can have equal access to participate in society. This includes online and digital spaces, and it’s therefore vital to make sure that our organisations, services, digital content, and ways of working are set up in the right way to accommodate the needs of a diverse audience so that everyone can feel included and engaged. This includes considering best practice in a wide range of contexts – from the documents you make and use, the websites you build, the development cycles you follow, to the IT solutions you procure, and the online meetings you host. Good digital accessibility is more than just meeting our legal obligations, it’s the right thing to do. Without an inclusive approach, you could be at risk of excluding people, whether that’s team members, or potential customers. There are principles, standards, and best practice which we need to follow, and these can often take a certain amount of time, effort, and expertise to interpret, but you don’t have to be an expert to get to grips with the basics. The journey to becoming more accessible is exactly, that – a journey rather than a quick fix. There are ways in which you can embed good digital accessibility into ways of working sustainably and effectively by following small steps to ensure the change management process is as smooth as possible. https://www.apm.org.uk/news/demystifying-digital-accessibility-webinar/

1. Demystifying digital
accessibility
APM Thames Valley
14.03.2024
Jade Matos Carew
Head of Digital Accessibility and Usability
Accessibility and Usability Evaluation, Digital Services

2. 2
What we’re going to do this evening!
Learn what digital accessibility is all about
Understand why it’s important
Think about how we can get started with implementing good
practice
Go through some top tips!
Any questions along the way? In the chat, on the mirophone, it’s all
very informal!
Time at the end and follow up if needed

3. 3
Thinking about what we already know
What do we know about the kind of conditions people
with partial sight or visual issues can experience?
• Blurred vision
• Vision loss
• Floaters, shadows, missing
areas
• Issues differentiating low
contrast
• Issues with brightness
• Permanent, deteriorating,
temporary.

4. 4
Devices, software, hardware
What do we know about the types of devices, software, hardware people
with partial sight or visual issues might use?
• Smart home tech, e.g. Amazon Echo
• In built accessibility features on mobile devices
• Different apps to help perform everyday tasks, e.g. colour match,
navigate
• Text readers/screen readers
• Zoom, magnifiers (hardware/software)
• Changing colour settings using software
• Large print, larger than standard equipment (buttons, clocks)
• Talking items (watches, microwaves)
• Walking aids, e.g. different types of cane, anti-glare glasses
• Tactile markers, brightly coloured items to increase contrast

5. 5
A thought…
“The 21st century is a great time to be a
blind person. There’s so much assistance
out there now that allows you to access
everything normally. If you look at the
iPhone now you can access all the features
that everyone else can with Voiceover.
It’s not perhaps as easy but you have the
same level of access.”

6. 6
Our OU mission and
values
• To be open to people, places,
methods and ideas.
• We promote educational
opportunity and social
justice.
• The social model of
disability – removing
barriers

7. 7
OU disabled students
Over 36,000 students with declared
disabilities
Many students have more than one
registered disability
Prioritising disabled staff
Thinking about disability and
accessibility holistically
Ensuring we’re accessible by
design, anticipatory rather than
reactive

8. 8
Outside the OU context
Think about this in your own
contexts: staff, customers,
clients.
Everything’s online, how does
that impact participation in
society?
Scope research and statistics,
16 million disabled people in
the UK.
The ‘Purple Pound’

9. 9
Quiz question 1!
What law do we rely on?
• The Equality Act (2010)
• The Public Sector Bodies
Accessibility Regulations
(2018)
• The European Accessibility
Act (2019)
• All of these

10. 10
UK Legislation (yawn!)
Equality Act 2010 (or the
Disability Discrimination
Act 1995 in Northern
Ireland).
Public Sector Bodies
(Websites and Mobile
Applications) (No. 2)
Accessibility Regulations
2018.
The European Accessibility
Act (2019)
The Government Digital
Service and accessibility
statements

11. 11
Quiz question 2!
What does digital
accessibility cover?
• Apps
• Documents
• Websites and systems
• All of the above!

12. 12
Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines
• ‘Wuh Cag’
• W3C, full guidelines
• Different versions, 2.0,
2.1, 2.2, 3!
• Different levels of
compliance, A, AA, AAA
• WCAG 2.2 Level AA is the
benchmark to achieve

13. 13
POUR
Perceivable
Content can be accessed equally
using more than one sense, for
example, images have alternative
text and videos have captions and
audio descriptions
Operable
Content can be used by any
hardware or software device, for
example a link or button can be
activated by a mouse, by the
keyboard, on a touch screen.

14. 14
POUR (continued)
Understandable
Users can navigate information, for
example, defining the language,
expanding abbreviations and explaining
unusual words. Users can navigate user
interface components with consistent
and predictable navigation and clear
error handling
Robust
Content works dependably in existing
and future browsers and across all
assistive technologies, for example,
code should be written with defined
standards like HTML5

15. 15
Short break! Back in a few minutes

16. 16
Where do I start?!
• ‘This is a lot of work for a
couple of screen reader users!’
• ‘But I’ve always done it this
way!’
• Re-educate, dispel myths, correct
misinformation
• Awareness - capture hearts and
minds (RNIB What’s in Store?)
• Supporting change stages
• ‘Everything needs to be done
immediately!’
• Slow steps… easy information.
• Targets as teams, smaller
projects.

17. 17
Lewin’s Three Stage Model

18. 18
Good foundations
• Reinforcing change
• Bridging the gap between
knowledge and action
• Putting foundations and
building blocks in place
• Breaking down silos
• Being proative!
• Training and guidance
• Awareness and communications
• Resourcing
• Leading by example

19. 19
Top Tips!
SCULPT for Accessibility

20. 20
Structure
• The structure is all important!
• Screen reader and keyboard only users
rely on correct structure for reliable
access.
• With a web page this means the HTML
must be correctly written and
validate. With documents this means
the correct headings and labels must
be used.
• Consider creating templates and making
them available for use to ensure good
practice has been started off.
• Use the inbuilt accessibility checkers
in your software to pick up any
obvious errors.

21. 21
Colour
• If your text is under 18 points (14
points, if bold), it must have a 4.5:1
ratio with the background.
• Colour contrast between text and
background is key.
• Consider colour blindness when
selecting colours – 8% of men and 0.5%
of women have colour deficiencies.
• Avoid over-using highly saturated
colours and cluttered patterns, they
may be pretty, but can cause headaches
and brain fog!
• Don’t use colour alone to describe
data.

22. 22
Use of images and alt text
• Alt text should be around 100 – 140
characters long – roughly one sentence
– as concise language is preferred.
• Be descriptive but succinct!
• Does not need ‘Image of’ or similar
included.
• Any image that adds information, needs
to have alt text describing it.
• If it is purely decorative, mark it as
such in the document settings, so it
won’t interfere with screen readers.

23. 23
Links
• Make them descriptive!
• Don’t use just the url alone, this is
horrendous to listen to with a screen
reader.
• It also doesn’t tell anyone where it
is going to take them if they click
it!
• Don’t use the same text more than
once: ‘click here’, ‘find out more’,
‘this link’ etc.

24. 24
Plain English
• Plain English benefits everyone, but
especially the neurodivergent, people
with cognitive disabilities and non-
native speakers.
• Read your writing out loud to
yourself, or a volunteer. Better: get
a volunteer who doesn’t know the topic
as well as you, to see if they can
follow it.
• Favour shorter words and shorter
sentences.
• Use every day language: avoid jargon,
legalese, and acronyms.
• Use active verbs and avoid the passive

25. 25
Text treatment
• It should always be legible to all
users, including people with low
vision and neurodivergent people.
• Use sans serif fonts.
• Don’t use text smaller than 14 point.
• Use 1.5 line spacing.
• Make sure the colour contrast is well
maintained as well as the text size.
• Don’t clutter too much text into one
page, just use another page or
rewrite.

26. 26
A parting tip!
Microsoft Accessibility Checker tool

27. 27
(Another parting tip!)
Beware of accessibility overlays:
they’re accessibility snake oil!
Siteimprove’s guide to
accessibility overlays.
There’s no such thing as a quick
fix!

28. 28
Questions?

29. Thank you
Jade.matoscarew@open.ac.uk