Today is a day of triple celebration!
By the strangest of coincidences, 3 events are happening today.
What is happening?
Firstly, today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day! It was first launched in May 2012 with the aim of getting everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital (web, software, mobile, etc.) access or inclusion and people with different disabilities. This is obviously so close to our hearts!
This is fantastic! What else?
Secondly, it is our 17th birthday! On 18th May 2006, Access by Design officially came into existence with the aim of showing the world that it is possible to have a website that is both well-designed whilst also being fully accessible to disabled people!
Wow! What is the third thing?
Thirdly, we are finalists in the Small Awards tonight in London, in the Best Online Business Category! The Awards Ceremony is at St Mary’s Church, Marylebone and we will be dusting off our glad rags!
Regardless of the outcome tonight, I’m proud of the small contribution we have made towards making the digital world a more accessible place and so thankful for meeting so many incredible #a11y’s along the way.
There is much to do!
However, with 230 million inaccessible websites currently on the Web, the work has barely begun!
Caption: GAAD Logo, Access by Design Logo, Small Awards 2023 Logo. The text reads “Happy GAAD everyone!!! Today is also our 17th Birthday!"
Would you like to find out more?
If you would like to find out more about website accessibility, please follow these links:
Watch my TED Talk
Find out more about website accessibility audits
Discuss having an accessibility audit of your website
Have a 1-hour consultation on any aspect of website accessibility
Clive Loseby
Access by Design
Beautiful, WCAG Compliant, Accessible Website Design
Delivering an Outstanding Website Accessibility Audit
Award-winning Web Design, Chichester
Once upon a time, 34 years ago…
A life-changing event
4 teenagers come out of a club in Brighton at 2am. The driver felt he had too much to drink, so they all agreed to sleep in the car. Clive slept in the back seat and his fiancée Jess slept in the boot, as it was an estate car. Their friend Jane slept in the passenger seat.
The driver woke up at 4am, felt OK and set off. He didn’t wake the others, so they were all in prone positions without seatbelts.
He was, sadly, still way over the limit and he fell asleep at the wheel on the Old Shoreham Road, by the cemetery. The car hit a lamppost at approximately 46mph and was a wreck.
Everyone suffered life-changing injuries. Clive punctured his lungs and was on life-support, he suffered damage to his back and had severe head trauma, which has had a profound effect on his life. Jess was far worse, she suffered multiple injuries, including head trauma and was permanently paralysed from the waist-down. Jane’s suffered a broken leg and severe facial injuries. The driver had cuts and bruises but his trauma was mental. No-one blamed him, it was just one of those things
Clive and Jess were not able to marry until the following year, as she was in spinal rehab. They remained married for another 30 years until 2021 and had 3 amazing children.
A new set of train tracks
Sometimes your life changes direction. Sometimes it does not just change direction, you literally find yourself on another set of train tracks altogether, with no reference point.
Clive and Jess discovered that beautiful, historic, Chichester (in the UK), the City they lived in most of their lives, was actually beautiful, historic, inaccessible Chichester and at that time, there were no laws in place to ensure that access to buildings was a legal requirement. That legislation, the Disability Discrimination Act did not happen for another 5 years.
So the long, hard battle to make the world a more accessible place began. Jess formed a pressure group and campaigned relentlessly. She was in the local paper and things began to change.
Things began to change
The local Council put in 4000 dropped kerbs, one by one, the historic listed buildings discovered that they could become more accessible and a building that was several hundred years old had a lift put in. Jess literally changed the face of Chichester.
- After both having had success in the Creative Industry (Jess as a digital artist, Clive as a composer for TV and Film), they moved into web design.
By now, the world was a more accessible place than it had been but, virtually-speaking, it was like being back in the 1980s. Most websites were completely inaccessible for disabled people and those that were accessible were, frankly, not exactly aesthetically pleasing.
What is in a name?
Jess came up with the name Access by Design. It wasn’t just a name, it was a statement of intent. To show the world that it was possible to have a website that was both accessible and beautifully designed.
She stepped back from the business due to increasing poor health in 2010 but Clive carried on. Access by Design created the Web’s first mobile and tablet-friendly, fully accessible in 2011 and was recognised for that when it received an award for Innovation in 2015 at the Observer Business Awards.
TEDx Gig!
Clive kept promoting accessibility at every opportunity and, through Covid, focussed on doing so online. Thanks to Dale Howarth, he was able to give a TEDx Talk on Accessibility in March 2022. This was featured on TED.com in January 2023.
Clive, having worked in computers since the age of 11, was fascinated by the technical side of accessibility and has worked with many clients over the years, helping them along in their journey through the complex world of digital accessibility. As he began to build his team of amazing Disabled Auditors, he was reminded, time after time, that the only way to truly know how accessible a website truly is, is to have disabled people use it.
His team have visual, physical and cognitive disabilities and they do not go looking for issues. They just try to use websites like everyone else but it is their Lived Experience that reveals the issues that cannot be found by any other means. This is what makes them so invaluable.
Access by Design have created perhaps 200 websites over the last 16 years, a mere drop in the ocean of over the 230 million websites live today. However, each agency Clive works with then goes on to create more accessible websites in the future, so there is perhaps some kind of a compound effect. However, the sad reality is that, in 2023, over 96.12% of websites fail basic accessibility tests.
It may be that Clive does not hit his rather ambitious target of helping every website to at least pass basic accessibility tests. In fact, his impact may be absolutely minimal, too small to even measure. He is OK about that.
He is OK about that because he found an #a11y.
He then found another one.
And another one.
One after another, after another. Amazing, like-minded people who share his passion to make the world a more accessible place and are all doing their bit to Change the World, One Website at a Time.
Together they can do it.
We have choices
Many people have some experience of disability, either permanently or temporarily and it gives them a perspective that they might not ever have had otherwise.
If the accident had not happened, there would have not been Access by Design.
You may not have any choice over things that happen to you but you have a choice in how you respond to it.
It does not matter where you are on the journey through digital accessibility. As my poll last week showed:
14% have just begun!
38% are getting there, slowly!
48% are Full steam ahead!
Imagine if this was reflected across the Web? How amazing would it be then?
Let’s journey on together. Join my army. https://cliveloseby.com/join-me/
Would you like to find out more?
If you would like to find out more about website accessibility, please follow these links:
Watch my TED Talk
Find out more about website accessibility audits
Discuss having an accessibility audit of your website
Have a 1-hour consultation on any aspect of website accessibility
Clive Loseby
Access by Design
Beautiful, WCAG Compliant, Accessible Website Design
Delivering an Outstanding Website Accessibility Audit
Award-winning Web Design, Chichester
Our Accessiblity Toolbar
We do this as standard!
Ever since 2006, when we created our first fully accessible website, we have always created an accessibility toolbar. This was always in addition to our fully WCAG compliant, accessible coding techniques.
Originally it was very simple and consisted of 4 buttons. Each button allowed you to change the way the page content was displayed.
You had a choice of 4 options:
- Standard Layout
- Large Text, which is easier for those with visual impairment
- High Contrast, which is easier for neurodivergent visitors
- Plain Text, which is easier for neurodivergent visitors and anyone else
Giving visitors a choice!
This meant that, from the outset, every website we created would always allow, at the very least, these options to every visitor. It allowed them to make the change at the press of a button, rather than them having to do anything in their own browser.
We have continually developed and enhanced our toolbar and it now gives a greater range of options but, as it is written directly into our code, it does not rely on any third-party software. Software that uses overlays that make websites less accessible, not more accessible.
If you want to find out more, do watch the video!
Imitation is the highest form of flattery!
We are always extremely gratified when others follow our lead and do the same. We are seeing our techniques being copied and used on other websites and for this, we are actually profoundly grateful. Simple things like this, when done correctly, can make a tremendous difference to the accessibility of a website.
This is one of the many reasons we love helping others on their digital accessibility journey. Once the penny drops, there's no looking back. Ever.
Would you like to find out more?
If you would like to find out more about website accessibility, please follow these links:
Watch my TED Talk
Find out more about website accessibility audits
Discuss having an accessibility audit of your website
Have a 1-hour consultation on any aspect of website accessibility
Clive Loseby
Access by Design
Beautiful, WCAG Compliant, Accessible Website Design
Delivering an Outstanding Website Accessibility Audit
Award-winning Web Design, Chichester
“We don’t allow Alt text”
An extensive digital accessibility review
I was talking to one of my clients yesterday that I had done a large piece of work for at the start of the year, helping them with the digital accessibility of their 5 websites. They are a wonderful organisation with a real passion for the inclusivity of disabled people. Their agency has been on a vertical learning curve since and I have been absolutely delighted with their progress so far!
My Team and I will be revisiting their websites soon, including two new ones that will be going live this Summer.
Issues with the online shop
One of the main challenges was with their eCommerce store. It was licensed by a 3rd party. One of the issues that came up in our audit was the fact that the product images lacked Alt Tags. This meant that it was not possible for blind people using screen readers to know what the images looked like.
Not allowed!
My client has asked the eCommerce provider about this and was told that Alt Text was not allowed. Not even “that isn’t something we currently provide but we are looking into it”, just that it was not allowed.
Gosh. That is rather a blunt answer.
The eCommerce provider may find out rather quickly that this is something they need to address, I hope they do!
Obviously, my client is looking at switching to another provider as soon as possible but these things are never easy to do.
Have you had a similar experience? I would love to hear about it.
Caption: A hand coming out of a wall, palm outwards. Text reads No Alt Text Allowed!
Would you like to find out more?
If you would like to find out more about website accessibility, please follow these links:
Watch my TED Talk
Find out more about website accessibility audits
Discuss having an accessibility audit of your website
Have a 1-hour consultation on any aspect of website accessibility
Clive Loseby
Access by Design
Accessible Websites, Beautifully Designed
Always Delivering an Outstanding Website Accessibility Audit
Award-winning Web Design, Chichester
The Blue Badge Access Awards 2023 have now been launched, with a new website!
What are the Blue Badge Access Awards?
The Blue Badge Access Awards has been setting the Gold Standard for Access within the hospitality sector. It was set up by our good friend Fiona Jarvis, the founder of Blue Badge Style, in 2016 and aims to reward hotels, restaurants, leisure and tourism venues and people for their efforts in becoming “accessible with style!”
A desire to be hospitable
The hospitality sector often has many challenges with accessibility but the very name “hospitable” implies wanting to welcome everyone, regardless of their ability or disability.
We know they often fall short of delivering but it is often not through want of trying but, rather, through lack of understanding. This is why these Awards are so important. By celebrating excellence in stylish accessibility, it encourages everyone to raise their game, rather than just pointing the finger and saying “Do Better”!
Stylish Accessibility!
Stylish Accessibility is a phrase that resonates with me, after all, it is why we called ourselves Access by Design 16 years ago. We have always wanted to prove that you can be both stylish and accessible.
The BBAA was built by us, using our flagship product, Run Your Own Website. This allows our clients to have a fully accessible website for a much lower cost than a fully bespoke design. Unsurprisingly, it is our most popular product!
We are proud to have played a significant part in helping the BBAA with their new, fully accessible website!
Could we help you?
If you would like to have a chat to see if Run Your Own Website could work for you, when not get in touch using any of these links:
Call +44-1243-7766399 (24 hrs)
Send an email to info@accessbydesign.uk
If you would like to find out more about website accessibility, please follow these links:
Watch my TED Talk
Find out more about website accessibility audits
Discuss having an accessibility audit of your website
Have a 1-hour consultation on any aspect of website accessibility
Clive Loseby
Access by Design
Accessible Websites, Beautifully Designed
Always Delivering an Outstanding Website Accessibility Audit
Award-winning Web Design, Chichester
Access by Design shortlisted for Small Award!
The Digital Star Award
We are very proud to announce that we have been has been shortlisted for the Digital Star Award at this year’s Small Awards.
Now in its seventh year, The Small Awards is a nationwide search for the smallest and greatest firms in the UK, across all sectors. It is organised annually by Small Business Britain, which champions, inspires and accelerates the nation’s 5.5 million small firms.
What is the award for?
We have been chosen as one of just eight finalists for the Digital Star Award for best digital-only business that recognises small businesses that operate only through digital channels, using the internet to market, sell and promote their products and services.
The award celebrates strong use of digital channels to engage customers, innovation in web design and functionality, and growth in audience over time.
With eleven different categories, the Small Awards celebrate the dynamism and resilience of the UK’s small business sector, across everything from sustainability heroes to digital stars, to long-standing family businesses.
From the Founder of Small Business Britain
“The Small Awards is all about celebrating the incredible small business owners who are at the heart of the economy and communities,” said Michelle Ovens CBE, Founder of Small Business Britain “They are an opportunity to recognise and applaud the passion and tenacity of the nation’s small firms, particularly during such turbulent times. Access by Design should be incredibly proud of being shortlisted for this award and we can’t wait to celebrate with them in May.”
What do we think about being shortlisted?
We are utterly thrilled to be selected as a Finalist for this Award, in the best digital-only business category. Whether it is through the accessible websites that we create or through working with other organisations with our amazing team of disabled testers, we have a single purpose – To Change The World, One Website At A Time! We are really looking forward to attending the awards in May!
Judged by a panel of industry experts, the winners of all categories, along with the overall winner of Small Business of the Year, will be announced at a glittering awards night in London on 18 May 2022.
This event follows the incredible return of the in-person Small Awards ceremony last year, which had been held online during the pandemic. The ceremony will this year be held at St Mary’s church in London, with plans underway for a night of entertainment, inspiration and celebration for UK’s greatest small businesses.
Would you like to find out more about what we do?
How to Migrate Your Business Online
The consequences of the deadly epidemic have been truly harsh on people. However, certain reports reveal a considerable increase in the close of traditional businesses. Rather than dwelling on the pain, damage, and uncertainty, migrating your business online is probably the wisest decision. This decision will help you survive and thrive during these tough economic times.
While consumers prefer online shopping more than in-person shopping, moving your business online is important. In a nutshell, businesses' online presence is more important than ever. Nonetheless, there has been a drastic shift in people's spending habits. A greater number of people are going online to make their purchases. This is how they are adapting to the new normal.
You should note that moving your business online can efficiently help in generating extensive revenues. And this will help in keeping your operations going and functioning well. This article will discuss a few actionable steps you can incorporate within your business and migrate online.
Let’s get going.
● Purchase a Domain Name
First things first. While you’re transforming your offline business online, you need to select and purchase a domain. This is indeed a crucial step towards moving your business online. To purchase a domain, you can search for the name of your business. You will get a few results from where you can purchase your desired domain.
If your offline username is already taken, you can always look out for alternative domain names from domain purchasing platforms. Purchasing a domain name is indeed a big step for you as a business owner. Thus, you need to take your time and follow a few guidelines.
- Consider purchasing .com, as it is considered the most powerful domain extension.
- Never use numbers or hyphens for domain names.
- Trademarked domains are very likely to get you in legal trouble, so you must avoid them.
- If you are a local business, you can consider using local extensions.
● Formulate a Website
Now that you have a registered domain name, you must start building your website. This is the most crucial step while setting up your online business platform. So, you need to think hard about your expectations from your online business before setting up your business platform. Before anything else, create a logo for your website and create a theme around it.
You can consider designing a DIY logo that represents your eCommerce business or store in the best way. If you wish to sell products through your website, you need to formulate an e-commerce platform.
But if you’re just advertising your offline business, you can start with digital marketing. This will efficiently help you establish the credibility of your business.
● Design the Website Efficiently
Next, it is time for you to work on your website design. Here, you will require a business logo and a well-designed website. As you are just starting, it’s always best to pick out a simple yet professionally designed theme for your website. If you wish, you can also add certain customizations over time.
Remember that your website design will do the talking for your brand’s personality. So, apart from mirroring your brand, your potential customers can easily navigate through your website. While designing your website, you can use pre-made themes best. This will help in ensuring that your website carries the appropriate image of your brand.
● Consider the Things You Wish to Sell
Now that you have successfully created a website for your online business, it’s time to focus on other things. You will have to decide what you should be selling on your website from your existing offerings. You can easily start by adding your best-selling items to your e-commerce website. This might help you determine new products that are increasingly selling at your online store.
● Assimilate All Your Legal Papers
While you are migrating your business online, it doesn’t mean that you are exempted from the standard legal procedures. Nonetheless, you will have to fulfill greater requirements. However, it entirely depends on how you consider and plan to run your business. Some of the legal documents that you will require to assimilate are:
- DBA license
- Business License
- Data privacy
- Tax obligations
● Incorporate Valuable Content into Your Website
It is no secret that content is an immensely crucial part while migrating your business online. This is because your potential customers will not be able to visit you in person. So, the only way to become familiar with your services is by providing good content about your business. You can consider adding content to the key pages of your website so that your customers can easily learn about you.
To Conclude
You must consider transforming your marketing strategies if you are still an offline business. Falling behind your competitors is not something that you would ever want to experience. So, take a closer look at your current setup and determine how things are going online. This will help you acquire more customers and generate revenue for your online business. Besides, switching your business from offline to online will help in keeping it going.
Access by Design. Beautiful, Accessible, Web Design, Chichester and Outstanding Website Accessibility Audits.
Expanding our team again in a different way!
Live website audits
One of my favourite parts of what I do is working with my Team on the Live Audits. It is always an enlightening experience but a sobering one at the same. I do not know what it is like to be blind and use a screen reader, or be unable to use a keyboard or mouse and use dictation software. However, when my team share the screens with me, sharing their daily lived experience, I do have an insight I would just not ever get otherwise. It is always humbling.
Editing the videos afterwards take time, of course. Each issue needs to be marked up so that when they are uploaded for our clients to view, they have chapter markers which allow them to jump straight to a specific issue. This is particularly useful for the web development team.
A lot of video content to be edited!
With a team of 5 testers, you could be looking at up to 10 hours of video to be edited. As we are getting busier, I have been thinking about bringing in others to help.
I had a chat with one of my clients, Nigel Honey, who runs Ability Academy. Nigel is a highly skilled TV editor who runs training courses with major UK and US production companies.
A fantastic solution!
He is also passionate about training young disabled people in becoming skilled editors themselves and I am going to be meeting some of them today!
I am so excited because it allows me to take on more audit work and have the extra capacity as needed. It also keeps our ethos of working with more disabled people and paying them the same commercial rates that anyone else would get.
Very sadly, the unemployment rate amongst the disabled community is disproportionately high and we need to change that and think differently.
This is my business model and how we are going to Change the World, One Website at a Time.
Caption: Two satsumas. The one on the right has been peeled. The one on the left has the shape of a person sitting on top of it, created from the peelings.
Would you like to find out more?
If you would like to find out more about website accessibility, please follow these links:
Find out more about website accessibility audits
Discuss having an accessibility audit of your website
Have a 1-hour consultation on any aspect of website accessibility
Clive Loseby
Access by Design
Accessible Websites, Beautifully Designed
Always Delivering an Outstanding Website Accessibility Audit
Award-winning Web Design, Chichester
Enlightening and horrifying!
I would like to share a comment I received on Monday from a web developer after I presented them with a digital accessibility review of a 6th-form college website.
“And Clive, if I take this moment (as the development team working on the amends) - the video and audio walkthroughs were both incredibly enlightening and horrifying at the same time. We've worked with accessibility companies in the past, but the level of detail you and your testers went into really helped us understand the urgency to get these sorted, along with the context in which the problems existed. Thanks for this.”
This is why we do what we do.
Would you like to find out more?
If you would like to find out more about website accessibility, please follow these links:
Watch my TED Talk
Find out more about website accessibility audits
Discuss having an accessibility audit of your website
Have a 1-hour consultation on any aspect of website accessibility
Clive Loseby
Access by Design
Accessible Websites, Beautifully Designed
Always Delivering an Outstanding Website Accessibility Audit
Award-winning Web Design, Chichester
LinkedIn tried to become more accessible and it sadly backfired
LinkedIn has decided to automatically add an alt tag when you post with an image.
A commendable attempt to improve accessibility on LinkedIn.
Except that, if you have already added it, it replaces it.
I uploaded my team photo with the Alt Text as follows:
"Photos of the Access by Design Team: Iona, Mede, Sara, Krista and Lleona"
LinkedIn helpfully replaced this with the following:
"graphical user interface, application, Teams"
I do not want to criticise LinkedIn for wanting to improve their accessibility but did they not think that it might be worth checking whether someone had added an Alt Tag already?
Follow this link to watch my TED Talk about website accessibility: https://go.ted.com/cliveloseby
Follow this link to find out more about website accessibility audits: https://accessibilityaudit.co.uk/
Follow this link if you would like to discuss having an accessibility audit of your website: https://calendly.com/cliveloseby/accessibility-audit-free-initial-consultation
Follow this link if you wish for a 1-hour consultation on any aspect of website accessibility: https://calendly.com/cliveloseby/client-website-accessibility-consultation
Clive Loseby
Access by Design
Accessible Websites, Beautifully Designed
Always Delivering an Outstanding Website Accessibility Audit
Award-winning Web Design, Chichester