Digital Accessibility and Inclusive Design.

Let us support your accessibility journey.

Accessible Website Design Services.

Designing websites with inclusivity and accessibility in mind.

In a perfect world all businesses would fully embrace digital accessibility, promote its importance and embed it into every aspect of their online products and services. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case.

In our experience it’s not an unwillingness to engage, but more a lack of understanding and knowledge on what needs to be done to ensure a website and other digital content can be used by as many people as possible. That’s where our team can help.

We design and create all of our websites and digital content to be inclusive and accessible to as wide an audience as possible from the outset.  It gives us the knowledge and skills to help your business assess where you currently stand, identify any gaps and provide support and guidance to help you on your accessibility journey.

What is Inclusive Web Design?

No One-Size-Fits-All Digital Marketing Solutions

Inclusive web design aims to ensure that your website and other digital content contained on it is useful, easy to use and engaging to as many people as possible.

It’s a misconception that accessible and inclusive web design is purely to benefit those with a disability, whereas in fact it makes finding out about your business and services, or buying your products easier for every visitor to your website.

The British Standards Institute (2005) defines inclusive design as:

“The design of mainstream products and/or services that are accessible to, and usable by, as many people as reasonably possible, on a global basis, in a wide variety of situations and to the greatest extent possible with the need for special adaptation or specialised design.”

The Equality Act 2010 states that all businesses should make reasonable adjustments so that those with a disability are not at a disadvantage. However, it does not specify exact standards that need to be achieved.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1) provide the standard for accessibility and breakdown every requirement to achieve 3 different levels:

WCAG Level A

Basic Accessibility

More Accessible

WCAG Levle AAA

Most Accessible

Current best practice for all businesses would be to reach a minimum of AA (in fact all public sector bodies are required by law to meet AA standard), however whilst achieving this is the aim, any improvement should be seen as an important first step on the journey to full accessibility.

The guidelines are incredibly detailed which is why getting help from an experienced web team can save considerable time, effort and money.

Want to Learn More About Accessibility?

If you have just started your accessibility journey and want to understand more about what it means, check out our blog.

Read Our Blog

Benefits of Digital Accessibility.

Accessibility isn’t just about helping those with a disability.

  • Increased revenue – 70% of users will click away from a website that is inaccessible. The click-away-pound is estimated at a £17.1 billion loss for businesses.
  • Minimise legal risk – The Equality Act 2010 & The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 require UK businesses to make their products and services accessible.
  • Improved user experience – It’s not just about users with a disability, ensuring your website is accessible creates a better user experience for all.
  • Enhance your brand – Great brands align themselves with their audiences, by embracing a culture of inclusivity you will encourage brand loyalty and attract new clients.
A woman using her phone with one hand whilst on the move

How we can Support your Accessibility Journey.

Whether you understand the importance of accessibility already, or are still learning, we are here to help. Our team can support your accessibility journey through a range of services.

Inclusive Web Design

If your site is old, it might be more cost effective to start again with inclusive design considered from the start rather than trying to retrofit your current site. Find out about our web design service.

AI Accessibility Software

We partner with an automated accessibility software solution used by over 100,000 websites across the world.  Learn more about the Accessibility Software.

Accessibility Implementation

Working with your team we can help them improve the accessibility of your site and other digital content as well as building their knowledge on best practice.

Demonstrating Inclusive Design.

BASDA website utilising AI interface for accessibility

Accessibility Strategy for a UK Trade Body

How we helped
First Call Financials Accessibility Tool on Their Website

Audit & Implementation for Accountants

How we helped

See how we are engaging with businesses, sharing knowledge & promoting the importance of accessibility and inclusive design.

BASDA webinar

Let’s have a Chat About Accessibility.

If you want to make your website more inclusive for all users chat with our team today.

Arrange a Call

Accessibility FAQ’s.

Answering your questions about website accessibility.

Yes.  The Equality Act 2010 requires all businesses, charities and organisations to make their website and other online content accessible, although there is no set minimum standard.

The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 however require all Public Sector bodies (with some exclusions) to ensure their website and other online content is accessible to WCAG 2.1 AA standard.

WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and is published by the Web Accessibility Initiative. The goal of these guidelines is to provide a single shared standard for web content accessibility.

WCAG 2.1 guidelines are split into 4 principles: perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. For each guideline there are success criteria’s which are split into 3 levels: A, AA and AAA.

Public sector bodies currently have to achieve AA standards (which includes all A criteria).

Many people mistakenly assume that accessibility is only to ensure that people with disabilities like sight loss, motor impairment, learning difficulties, hearing difficulties can effectively use a website and other digital media.

However, accessibility impacts all users. For example, if someone was working on a train in cramped conditions with sun glaring on their device, they would require accessible design features to ensure that they can use your website.

An accessible website will provide added benefit to any user by providing an enhanced user experience and therefore helping to drive more engagement and increase leads.

The key factor to remember when prioritising digital accessibility in your business is that you are trying to achieve online and offline content that can be used by as many people as possible.

An accessibility statement is an important way for your business to explain the factors that you have implemented to make your website more accessible.

As part of achieving compliance with the WCAG 2.1 standards at AA level you will need to ensure that you have an accessibility statement available on your site and that it accurately reflects the current position.

A number of the criteria that are featured in the WCAG 2.1 guidelines closely overlap with factors that can help improve how Google and other Search Engines read the content on your site which can help with where it ranks within the Search Engine Results.

This includes things such as ensuring you have a single H1 on a page, using correctly structured heading tags and adding alternative descriptions to your images.

Accessibility toolbar and website audit tool

As a charity, ensuring our website and other digital content is as inclusive as possible is critical in enabling individuals and their families to access the support they need easily and quickly.

Having attended a talk by Helen Moloney, MD of All Things Web® about the importance of accessible and inclusive design, we asked them for an audit of our current website and online content.   We knew that accessibility had been considered when the website was originally built but a few years on, we wanted to understand where things stood and what if any further improvements could be made.

They provided a detailed report of the results of the audit highlighting those areas that required some further work and providing practical recommendations we could make to improve the experience for all visitors.  They understood that as a charity budgets can be restricted and so they focused on those areas that would have the most impact and also helped us to understand that accessibility should be seen as an ongoing journey rather than a one of task to be completed.  One that we are now fully embracing with our website and other online content.

We would highly recommend any business wanting to ensure their website and content was inclusive to have a conversation with the team at All Things Web®.

Bridget Dowty, Head of Communications - Brain Tumour Support

We fully embrace the growing importance, demand and opportunity for businesses to adopt accessibility across their digital products, their communication with customers and how they conduct business.  We also recognised the need for BASDA to lead the way for its members and champion inclusive design. However, we needed to ensure that our own website and marketing collateral met industry standards and was fit for purpose.  ATW ensured that we became compliant in a short period of time and provided us with confidence that we are moving in the right direction in all that we do online.

Kevin Hart, CEO & Executive Chairperson - BASDA

Get In Touch.

Let's have an initial, no obligation chat to see if we could work together to achieve your goals.

01285 50 55 50

hello@allthingsweb.co.uk

YOUR VISION. OUR EXPERTISE