Today is the 2013 International Day of Persons with Disabilities. This year's theme, “Break Barriers, Open Doors: for an inclusive society and development for all”, resonates deeply with me.
My work at the GDS since I became a Civil Servant has been almost entirely focussed on ensuring the work we do is as inclusive as we can make it. People don't typically choose to interact with government, after all, so we owe it to our users to do as much as we can to ensure they aren't excluded unnecessarily.
For example, we've gone to great lengths across the different projects we work on to ensure that our blind and partially-sighted users can access our services through assistive technologies such as screen readers and screen magnifiers. We've worked hard to simplify the language we use so that it's simpler and clearer to understand. We've also tried to make GOV.UK a consistent, responsive platform that is accessible at its heart.
Recently I've been working to understand how we can better serve the very diverse needs of our deaf users.
To do this, I've been talking with organisations, with colleagues across government, and with the many thousands of users in Facebook groups such as Pardon? and Spit the Dummy; we wanted to find out first-hand what our deaf users think of the services we provide.
Yesterday I met with Sir Malcolm Bruce in his role as Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness to discuss how we might improve access for deaf users, and I'm confident we'll be able to make a start on meeting the needs of those users soon.
Inclusion is important to me, not just in my Accessibility role here, but as a guiding principle. When it comes to being inclusive, it's not a matter of providing special access for the disabled; it's about providing an equivalent experience where we don't exclude anyone.
For me this work isn't about disability, it's about fairness.
We should all strive to make the products and services we build as inclusive as we can. Not simply because of a legal requirement, but as a mark of empathy and respect for our very diverse audience.
Here's to what we can accomplish in 2014. Onwards!
@partiallyblind
6 comments
Comment by Don Rudston posted on
The service is awful. Absolutely awful!
Comment by Don Rudston posted on
I'm waiting for my comment to 'await moderation'.Whatever that means. How long? 5 minutes?10? 3 Days?
Comment by Carrie Barclay posted on
Hi Don. Moderation usually takes place during working hours Monday to Friday. This allows us to ensure that comments adhere to our blog comments and moderation guidelines. Carrie
Comment by Don Rudston posted on
One thing that needs developing is access to your eMail address. I want simply to inform DWP that I wish to change the bank into which my pension is paid. Can I find an address? Can I hell!
I do not wish to telephone.
Comment by Ian Hamilton posted on
"For me this work isn’t about disability, it’s about fairness."
Well said!
Comment by Kahootz (@Kahootz) posted on
Joshua,
great to see the importance of this issue is being raised by you.
You might be interested in this posting by me last year:
http://in.kahootz.com/blog/bid/267377/Online-Collaboration-Tools-Accessibility-Buyer-Beware
I have been trying for over a year to get vendor declaration of level of web accessibility as a CloudStore functional requirement. Perhaps you might have better luck?
See last para in this article:
http://in.kahootz.com/blog/bid/321378/Is-the-G-Cloud-4-Procurement-Framework-an-Improvement
Keep up the good work!