Fanning the flames of Inclusive Design in 2020

2019 was the year “Inclusive Design went mainstream”.

We certainly experienced that at Hassell Inclusion. We spoke with huge numbers of digital product creators at events up and down the UK that were either finally taking their first steps into taking accessibility seriously, or were reaching out to us to help them deeper into their accessibility journey – to get from good to great.

While some organisations, like Microsoft, Apple, and Scope, who we helped win a BIMA for the Inclusive Design of the website in 2019, were happy to talk openly about their inclusive design efforts, we helped many others quietly, without fanfare. Some, we think the potential winners of awards in the coming years, made big strides in 2019, and we hope to celebrate with them in the future.

Organisations have loved our approach (the Hassell Inclusion Way) enabling them to understand how they can take useful steps to mature in accessibility, however much or little accessibility work they’ve already done when they approach us.

We’re helping many organisations take their first steps, often after coming to one of our Benefits of Digital Accessibility workshops to find out how accessibility can help them achieve their business goals.

Other organisations are coming to us to embed accessibility within key website or app projects right from the start. They’re finding, like Scope, that this pays huge dividends as they’re saved from the sinking feeling that many other organisations get from disappointing test results when they finally consider accessibility just before launch.  At Hassell Inclusion we believe in training people to get accessibility right, much more than testing products to prove they’ve got it wrong. Even when we’re testing, our Live Accessibility Audits enable teams to learn how to test and fix issues live, rather than just finding out about those issues when they are presented in a report.

We’re also working with many organisations who are already good at accessibility, but need to know where to go next, to maximise the benefit from their hard work. We’re working with digital agencies who want to become ISO 30071-1 certified to prove to clients that they know what they are doing with accessibility, organisations who are looking to build economies of scale into their development by embedding accessibility into component libraries, and companies looking to use insights from inclusive design to help them be more innovative.

Wherever you are on your inclusive design journey, making accessibility achievable, scalable, repeatable and most importantly enjoyable, is the real key. So we’ve created a brochure to map out some of the different journeys we’ve taken our clients on. Download it below.

And, if we can help you wherever you are on your journey, please let us know.