Our site has been designed so that everyone can use it, whether they use assistive technologies or not.

If you have any trouble accessing our site, we will help you - and fix the site - if you let us know.

What is accessibility?

Disabled people face disadvantage, not because of their impairment, but because of the way products and services have been designed and built. If products are accessible, as is increasingly becoming the norm rather than the exception, our experience has shown that everyone benefits - including those customers that have no disability and, crucially for our clients, the companies that are selling the products and services that we design.

Of course this isn't just an ethical or commercial issue. Legislation is in force around the world to address inequalities and force old preconceptions to change. In the UK, for example, the Disability Discrimination Act (1999) Part Three states that companies "must take reasonable steps" to provide access to their services to all.

What does this mean for you?

What exactly are 'reasonable steps'? Each project is different. Audit Commission, BBC, British Standards Institution and London Borough of Newham all demanded designs that were accessible to all.

But what is expected from a small company is vastly different to what is legally required from an organisation in the Public Sector or a large company that has an effective monopoly over service provision. Always remember though that exceeding expectations can be a competitive opportunity that brings in millions of new customers. W3C logoThat's why our designs for Adidas, Lloyds TSB, OctopusTravel and Orange exceed the legislative requirement by aiming for AAA compliance wherever possible.

It's simple

Here are some of the small techniques that make a big difference.

  • Our designs speak plain, jargon-free English. This renders them deaf friendly - as British Sign Language users have a smaller English vocabulary - but we all benefit from copy that is easier to understand the first time it is read.
  • Colour combinations are designed to ensure appropriate colour contrast and colour difference. This means that one in twelve men who are colour-blind are not excluded, plus we all benefit from a design that is faster and easier to use.
  • Our designs allow text size to be increased or decreased for more comfortable reading. This allows access to the visually impaired but benefits all kinds of users e.g. with very high-resolution screens or even small mobile screens.
  • Web pages are not built using frames. This allows blind users to navigate using assistive technologies such as screen readers, while also ensuring sighted users can bookmark and print pages easily.
  • All pages have a predictable and intuitive 'tab order' allowing non-mouse users to navigate via keyboard. This is especially valuable to customers on transactional sites that use a lot of forms.
  • Invisible "skip to page contents" links are provided on every page to allow people using screenreaders to jump over the persistent navigation and get straight to the content.
  • In our designs only selected images have 'alt text' -those that convey information. Brochureware, for example, i.e. images that are decorative for sighted readers contain NULL 'alt text' so as to not distract or slow down people using screenreaders.
  • We also avoid using access keys so that they do not conflict with the shortcut keys used by the wide range of browsers and assistive technologies.