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Case studies

In 2004 extensive research by the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) found that 45 per cent of the issues encountered by disabled users wouldn't have been identified by an accessibility audit of the code alone.

This research, involving able-bodied as well as disabled testers, also proved that an accessible site is 35 per cent easier for all visitors to use, not just those with a disability.

Find out about our accessibility audit and disabled user testing services and how we can help you benefit from this highly significant ‘usability bonus’.

Unum

Unum was among AbilityNet’s very first customers, and has made extensive use of the charity’s consultancy service, including onsite awareness training.

With a 34 per cent UK market share in providing disability income protection insurance, Unum is the leader in this field. Since business revolves around disability Paul Sprules, the company’s eBusiness Manager explains, "It makes us very conscious of the needs of disabled people and the barriers they can face with non-accessible websites. Watching Robin Christopherson at work has given us a real insight into how difficult some sites can be to navigate and has increased our determination to make our sites accessible."

Recently Unum’s website became the very first in the UK to be accredited with the ‘See it Right: Useability’ logo, jointly awarded by AbilityNet and the RNIB.

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Legal & General

Early in 2006 Legal & General launched a new, much more accessible website. As part of this relaunch AbilityNet completed extensive disabled user testing to ensure accessibility and usability for real users.

Since relaunching as www.legalandgeneralgroup.com the company has seen very significant benefits in a number of areas including:

• 95 per cent increase in life quote requests online
• 90 per cent increase in life insurance sales online
• estimated savings of 200k annually on site maintenance (that is, a 66 per cent saving)
• speed/effort required to manage content reduced from an average of 5 days to 0.5 days for each job
• 30 per cent increase in natural search engine traffic
• significant improvements in Google rankings for all target keywords
• 75 per cent reduction in time taken to load a page
• an additional 13,000 visitors each month from improved browser compatibility, including on PDAs, mobiles, BlackBerry and other hand held devices
• no complaints
• 100 per cent return on investment in just 5 months – the original goal was to do this in under 12 months.

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Virgin Atlantic

Virgin Atlantic asked for AbilityNet’s help following the first of our highly successful ’State of the eNation’ reports which found that the UK’s leading airlines were failing to meet minimum accessibility standards on their websites.

Since then AbilityNet have reviewed a number of Virgin Atlantic websites and delivered a training programme for the company’s web production team to ensure ever improving access for disabled customers online.

The Virgin Atlantic website has been designed to meet the spirit of the level two recommendations made by the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and includes some of the checkpoints from level three. Brian Beirne, Virgin Atlantic’s Head of eCommerce, commented  "Virgin Atlantic is very pleased to be working with AbilityNet and is committed to website accessibility. We are now fully compliant with the DDA, which is a major step in the right direction.  Our website contains many useful features such as booking, check-in, seat assignment and Flying Club account management, and we look forward to continuing to improve accessibility and usability for all users."

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smile

Two years ago an RNIB audit of the smile website and secure banking service highlighted aspects of the site that did not conform to World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) guidelines. A recommendation from the Employers’ Forum on Disability then prompted smile to approach AbilityNet for help. Katherine Stubbs, Compliance Advisor with smile, described the online bank’s approach to accessibility, "As an internet-only banking service, it’s just something we have to do.. We wanted to go further than a report and have someone alongside who would tell us how to implement the advice" she said.

AbilityNet began by completing a comprehensive audit of the smile website and secure banking service. This extended to advice on all printed materials, from introductory packs on opening an account to cheque books and statements, leading to recommendations on text size and style.

The review of the website and secure banking service produced a few issues. According to AbilityNet’s Robin Christopherson, "The site employed a nice tone and was consistently and clearly laid out, but hyperlinks were not always obvious, being pink text instead of the normal blue underlined, and pop-up windows were used without warning the user. Whilst most text scaled nicely with the user’s preference some did not and some links were too close together for those, for example, with ataxic movements. Most pages had unlabelled graphics and many relied on JavaScript – small embedded programs – that caused problems for some access technologies."

smile acknowledged these comments and have worked to make their website meet the W3C guidelines to conformance level A. Providing a secure banking service without JavaScript is now part of a bank-wide project that is due to deliver later in 2006. The W3C guidelines are now part of the general standards followed when smile make any improvements to their site. smile also continue to respond to customer feedback as part of their work to make the site both usable and accessible.

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Citizens Advice

Citizens Advice run 2000 bureaux across the UK. They provide vital advice and support on a wide range of topics to thousands of visitors.

Since 2001 AbilityNet have been extensively involved in providing website and software audits, standards and guidelines reviewing and awareness consultancy for Citizens Advice. At the start Sally Dixon was Systems Implementation Manager for Citizens Advice and a member of an internal group called ‘Equal IT’. This group is responsible for providing advice on equal opportunities issues relating to the use of information technology within the Citizens Advice service.

Sally Dixon and her colleagues are well aware of the size of the accessibility task, particularly for live implementations where accessibility has to be built in as a retrospective exercise. As a result, Sally’s recent focus has been to develop a comprehensive policy guideline document, not only for web accessibility, but also covering applications software. The aim is to ensure, as far as possible, that all new projects take accessibility fully into account. Sally commented "AbilityNet provide the impartial advice that we value across all this activity." She added that "Robin Christopherson and his team had significantly added to the W3C guidelines when helping Citzens Advice compile their own standards document."

The charity’s target is full W3C level two accessibility for web software and priority two of the Irish National IT Accessibility Guidelines for applications software. AbilityNet are actively involved in helping them meet their goals.

For more information:

• Email accessibility@AbilityNet.org.uk
• Phone 0800 269545

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