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It can feel overwhelming to know where to start with intentionally being more inclusive in your business. You may recognize that it’s important and the right thing to do, but you could also feel that you don’t have the time, expertise, or capacity needed to make meaningful improvements. 

As a web manager learning about digital accessibility, I’ve certainly felt like, “If I can’t be aware of and fix everything, will I open myself up to criticism by starting to make an effort?” Or, “I can influence accessibility on the website I manage, but what about the business’s other online/offline touchpoints, how can I ensure they’re inclusive?”

It’s been a case of putting my ego/fear of falling short aside and controlling what I can control. A written commitment to your users is a strong place to start. It can help you to build trust, prioritize improvements and provide accountability.

What you need to know first

As with any plan or strategy, you need to know where you’re starting from. You could completely outsource this and have a digital accessibility audit. These typically cover automated (using tools) and manual (with people) testing. 

A thorough audit will give you an overview of where the barriers are that could impact the experience of disabled people or those with situational impairments. It may also provide recommendations on how to apply fixes. 

However, this level of audit can be prohibitive, particularly for smaller businesses or larger ones with multiple websites

How to structure your statement

There isn’t a fixed structure for how you should structure your statement, but I’d advise including:

What website/s and/or apps does the statement cover?

Is it your primary domain or does it include any subdomains or other websites that your business owns?

Why is your organisation publishing this statement?

It’s tempting to write a generic statement about your business ‘being committed to as many people as possible being able to use the website’, but consider how you are going to achieve this and the trust you will risk if you don’t.

What level of compliance are you aiming for?

Most businesses will aim for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA. This is an industry standard but try not to be blinkered by it, as disability is a spectrum and every person’s experience is different. You may uncover in testing that there are barriers a user experiences that fall outside of WCAG’s criteria. Also, WCAG 2.2 is on the way.

What efforts have you made so far?

A summary of what you are confident isn’t currently creating barriers for users. This could include technical set-up: being able to zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen, being able to navigate most of the website using just a keyboard, etc. It could be doing regular testing with disabled users. It could be making your website text as simple as possible to understand.

Where do you know you need to improve?

It’s also important to acknowledge where improvements are needed. You may not be able to fix everything immediately, but it helps to be open about priorities and areas you’re currently working on. You could also include a link to a live roadmap.

How do you continually assess accessibility?

Websites are always evolving and accessibility is a long-term commitment, so it’s good to share how you plan ongoing improvements. This could be through regular testing with users with disabilities, regularly scanning the website with tools like the Silktide Accessibility Checker, or something less comprehensive like Google Lighthouse.

If users encounter a barrier, who can they contact?

A named or team contact and email address/phone number are useful for the user to be able to report any issues, for you to gather feedback, and to understand how a user may experience your website outside of test conditions. Be clear about what information you need to action any reports; the page/s, any assistive technology user, browser, device, etc.

An accessibility statement should be maintained like other legal documents on your website, such as your cookie or GDPR policy. That doesn’t mean it needs to be written in ‘legalese. Like all text throughout your website, it’s much more likely to be read and understood if you write in plain English (see this guide from Content Design London).

If you’re part of a public sector organization, GOV.UK gives clear guidance on what to include to be compliant with legal requirements and a sample accessibility statement. 

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As part of Global Accessibility Day 2021, Silktide analyzed 6,554 websites for accessibility issues and shared the results.

The key takeaways were pretty damning for the private sector as a whole; the overall public sector median score (based on WCAG compliance) was 65.30, while the overall median score for private sector websites was just 55.50. 

Click here to skip ahead to private sector website examples

These results chime with the broader inequality crisis in business (BBC news – external link) that has led to the world’s biggest firms joining the Valuable500 initiative – external link. The campaign, founded by Caroline Casey, aims to put disability inclusion on the board agenda of 500 international companies.

Tackling prejudice is most effective as an integral and multi-faceted part of company culture. While a website that works for everyone is only one facet, it is also often the first experience a prospective customer will have of a business. As Casey told the BBC, one-third of UK FTSE companies did not have a website that was ‘acceptable to people with disabilities and their families. Why would you do that?‘

Why, indeed. Making inclusivity a priority isn’t merely a noble pursuit, it makes commercial sense, especially during a time of economic recovery. There are 14.1 million disabled people in the UK alone and companies are reportedly losing $13 trillion in sales by ignoring disabled consumers (BBC news – external link). 

Gareth Ford Williams has reflected on his time as founder of the BBC’s Digital Accessibility Team, and one of the key lessons he’s shared is to invest enough time to shift the conversation from ‘worthy’ to ‘worthwhile’. Striving for inclusivity reaps benefits such as improved usability for everyone, enhanced search engine optimization (SEO), and stronger customer loyalty. “Accessibility positively impacts on the robustness and universality of products and improves overall brand perception” (The Little Book of Accessibility – external link). 

In brutally commercial terms, there’s an opportunity to gain a competitive edge by prioritizing digital inclusion now, rather than waiting to take action until commercial websites in the UK become subject to stronger legislation. I’ve recently shared how I’ve been learning about accessibility as a digital marketer. I believe that companies who invest in this area will gain the front-foot, similar to those that recognized that SEO or social media weren’t fads or one-off projects, but serious cornerstones for website growth, lead generation, and sales. 

Removing my marketing slant, accessibility can also be considered akin to a website’s privacy, data, or security policies. In her recent handbook, Sheri Byrne-Haber makes this comparison when highlighting how ‘Accessibility consulting is a specialization based on the interpretation of regulations’ (Giving a damn about accessibility – external link). Either way, it’s not something that can be ‘fixed’ once to tick a compliance box, it’s a long-term commitment to inclusive design and development practices and treating all users with dignity.

As someone who works in the private sector, I also appreciate there’s a lack of awareness of the impact of poor accessibility on web users. Until you see someone struggling to navigate a site or complete a form, it can be hard to appreciate how debilitating and frustrating it can be. 

It’s also often easier to make improvements when you know what ‘good’ looks like. Aside from WCAG, what are some of the considerations for more accessible websites? How are they managed? Do you need a tool or consultant to support you? How can you get started and replicate good practice with your existing website? 

These questions led me to seek out and share some strong examples of accessibility from commercial sites, with the help of the Silktide Index. Like every aspect of websites, accessibility is never ‘done’ and there’s always room for improvement, but these are some sites that we can look to, and hopefully, learn from. 

1. The Co-op

The Cooperative came out top for coop.co.uk in the UK Supermarkets category with a ‘Good’ score of 75. This isn’t surprising given the investment the company makes in digital and accessibility. The Co-op Digital blog – external link is such valuable reading for anyone working in the area. 

As a business, they have an accessibility policy for products and services and are committed to further improving inclusivity – external link. This commitment extends to helping to educate external professionals. They recently teamed up with Accessibility Manchester on a 3-day series of inclusion and accessibility talks – external link that was open to all. 

Coop.co.uk is a pleasure to use with a clear layout, structure, fonts, readability, and strong color contrasts. As an example, they include useful alt text for images that convey meaning e.g. for this promotional banner, the alt text is ‘Get grilling with 3 for £10 on BBQ meat and fish’ If the image isn’t seen, by some assistive technology users, those with slow internet connections or search engine crawlers, the meaning isn’t lost.

An area for improvement from the audit was ensuring that all form controls include labels, which was detected on some pages of Coop.co.uk with a search field that includes descriptions within classes and placeholders rather than explicit labels.

While the Co-op has a 62.3% Level AA rating, the team obviously thinks about digital inclusion beyond WCAG compliance. Their 8-stage accessibility process – external link has a more comprehensive approach, accountability, and transparency. 

The team acknowledges that improving accessibility across their websites is (and always will be) a work-in-progress, but in terms of their approach to research, designing alongside users (partnering with Fable – external link), and constant improvement, they are exemplary.

2. Primark

Perhaps surprisingly, Primark topped the UK Retail Fashion category with a ‘Good’ score of 75. 

Like most retail sites, this one has a mega menu with a lot of links to the various product categories. Primark has included a ‘skip to content’ link, which is helpful for keyboard and screen reader users to bypass the menu links, rather than needing to tab through or hear them every time they visit a new page.

<li class="access__item">
<a class="access__link" href="#skip-to-content">Skip to content</a>
</li>

This is a straightforward one to implement on any website that has header navigation before the main content. WebAIM – external link explores different ways these links can be added and also acknowledges that:

“‘skip navigation’ links are a rather clumsy and obtrusive solution to a real-world problem. They work. They’re useful, but they’re a bit of a hack.“

Hopefully, browsers will come to support navigation using ARIA landmarks and the HTML5 <main> element, but until then bypass blocks are an effective way to consider people who aren’t using a mouse.

An area of improvement for the Primark site would be more descriptive links; the Silktide index picked up lots of examples of ‘earn more’ and ‘find out more’ on the site. I regularly pick myself for this one as a web editor, fighting against my natural urge to keep links and call-to-action buttons neat and succinct. It’s one to question whether the link text gives enough detail and would make sense out of the context of what can be visually seen on the page. 

Better examples of links that include their purpose would be:

• ‘Learn more about our sizing guide’
• ‘Find out more about our summer sale’
• ‘Go to women’s dresses’

I also couldn’t see an accessibility statement on the site or any way for users to get in touch to report accessibility issues. 

3. Gatwick Express

In position 1 of the UK Rail operators category, the Gatwick Express site scored a ‘Great’ rating of 89. The site is clearly laid out, with logical headings and their accessibility features and W3C guidelines conformance are listed in their site accessibility – external link, which also mentions how they test the site with the text-only Lynx browser. 

The entire site seems to be in grayscale and using red as a highlight colour (and yellow for service disruption banners). This is a curious design choice given the recent fire that rail websites came under when they turned grayscale to mark the death of Prince Phillip (The Guardian – external link). Given their high rating and public commitment to inclusive design, you can only hope that visually impaired users have been considered and consulted as part of this design.

Something minor I picked up on when scanning the homepage was how the social media links caused me to strain my eyes. The colour contrast of the red icons on the grey background is 1.39:1 (Silktide contrast checker) rather than the recommendation of at least 3:1 for graphical elements. 

These are some brief examples of websites that are doing best in their categories, intended to show that there are efforts being made in some commercial businesses to offer accessible digital experiences. There’s undeniably a long way to go, and the Silktide Index scores should be taken as a guide to learn, challenge and strive for improvement. 

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Accessibility benefits everyone and I’ve committed to learning how to embed it into the digital projects I work on. Here’s how I’ve been getting started.

As a web UX manager, I brief, project-manage, test and sign off digital development. All members of a digital team should be responsible for ensuring that what they produce works for everyone. Content creators, researchers, designers, developers and testers all have a part to play.

When you’re new to digital accessibility it can get very complicated, very fast. There is plenty of material available to support your learning, but a lot of it can be theoretical and difficult to digest. It can feel overwhelming to know where to start.

Personally, I’ve found that inclusive design is one of those areas where the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. I’ve had to challenge myself and recognize when the way I’d been thinking about accessibility had been well-intentioned, but ultimately missing the point. 

As a non-disabled person, I need to be prepared to be wrong, to avoid reducing disability to a static monolith and to resist advocating on behalf of users in the absence of involving them. 

Accessibility is often reduced to checklists, compliance, and legislation but it should be focused on people and improving their online experience.

I’ve become absorbed in learning about the ways that websites/apps can be disabling to users and how digital design & development can be intentionally more inclusive. 

These are some things that I’ve found useful so far:

Reading, listening, and watching

I’ve had been readily receiving recommendations and have found these very helpful:

• Introduction to Web Accessibility by Michele A. Williams – a great 15 min baseline on designing, coding, and testing with users with disabilities in mind.
  
• There’s no such thing as a website or web app that doesn’t need to be accessible blog by Chris Ferdinandi – a snappy & impactful rebuffal of some common misconceptions around accessibility.
  
• The state of accessibility with Derek Featherstone – this gives a brilliant context within teams & organizations and how accessibility is an outcome but inclusive design is a process.
  
• Productivity recreates disability by Liz Jackson – I was fortunate enough to see Liz’s inspiring talk at the New Adventures conference in January 2020 and have re-watched it since. Liz highlights the limits of empathy and challenges the dynamic of disabled people as recipients rather than drivers of design.

Online learning

Some online, on-demand courses I’ve taken are:

• Udacity: Web Accessibility by Google, Developing with Empathy – a free 6-lesson foundation covering focus, how to ensure what you see on the page is matched in semantically-designed HTML/CSS, navigating content, how ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) can be used as an enhancement.
  
• W3Cx: Introduction to Web Accessibility – a free 5 module introduction, which is less technical and more holistic than the Udacity course.
  
  It gives a thorough overview of: how accessibility impacts people; assistive technologies and adaptive strategies; the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) principles of Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. It also gives practical guidance around building a business case and getting started with accessibility in your organization.

During these courses, I’ve been collating a document, to record and organize my accessibility notes. Knowing that I’m unlikely to retain all the lessons in front-of-mind, this will act as a reference so I know where to look in the future. 

Getting hands-on

• Exploring accessibility settings and testing different websites: Technology brands such as Apple and Google are at the forefront of creating inclusive technology and offering in-built accessibility settings in their products.
  
  Experimenting with different settings has helped me to understand how these settings can enhance UX. I’ve also been trying websites and apps using my keyboard, the screen reader NVDA, and the in-built voiceover on my phone.
  

• 48in48 project: I took part in the first Women’s Build Event to create 48 websites for not-for-profit organizations in one weekend. As part of the a11y (accessibility) team, we ran through a review of each site against key WCAG areas.
  
• Working with automation and testing tools: My team at The Access Group has recently invested in Silktide and we’ll be using the accessibility features to identify and prioritize fixes, based on how frequent or widespread the issue is, how much of a barrier it may cause for users and the effort required to fix.
  
  It has reinforced that embedding accessibility into design & development from the outset is far more efficient and considers the UX as well as meeting WCAG requirements.
  

Connecting with others

I’ve also been connecting with other digital practitioners who approach their work in an inclusive way. Speaking to people that are further on than I am and hearing about their experiences has been really valuable. 

From each of these conversations, I’ve come away with a new perspective on the reality of embedding accessibility into an organization and recommendations for further learning. 

I’ve also been finding like-minded colleagues to start to understand how accessibility is approached in other areas of the business, like product development and HR. 

The glaring omission in my learning so far, thanks to being in lockdown, has been speaking to disabled people in person about their experience of the web. Some of the most useful lessons during my online learning have been hearing directly from people about common frustrations and how they use adaptive strategies and assistive technologies. 

My intention is that my learning, questioning, and conversations will be ongoing, and crucially, create a foundation for action.

I’m also conscious that as a non-disabled person who has only experienced situational impairments when using technology, I need to resist the traps of seeing accessibility as a checklist or something that needs to be fixed, rather than a commitment to an inclusive mindset that benefits everyone. 

If you have any thoughts, are going through similar learning, or equally, would like to challenge anything in this post, you can find me on LinkedIn.