Over the year we ran several events including:
- A show and tell to highlight our discovery findings
- A webinar with Content Design London about accessible content
- A themed month for our Communities of Practice
- 4 training sessions for practitioners and leaders
- A Dolenni Digidol themed leadership event with a panel made up of the Older People’s Commissioner and the Equality and Human Rights Commissioner.
We engaged with 271 people from across the public sector. A further 500 people have watched the recording of these events on our YouTube channel.
Our leadership event provided a platform to align with strategic partners and strengthen the message around the importance of accessibility and the legislation that sits behind it.
“Digital accessibility must be a people-first priority in service delivery as public services must work for all of us, not just the digitally confident.
Prioritising accessibility will help to promote independence, enabling older people to do things like book a GP appointment, apply for financial entitlements or pay a council bill online without having to relying on help from others.”
“There is a duty to get this right as a public body under the Equalities Act 2010"
Lots of good feedback and takeaways from our training too:
‘It was a great course – very informative, if not a little overwhelming at times due to the legislative issues. Since then, I have reported back to my line manager the importance and legal obligations of an accessible website. With a view that budget and time is put aside to ensure that the current site is tested by user and not just relying on automative processes.”
“It has also brought home the importance of user feedback in all its guises and how it can add real value to our work”
“The course was brilliant and emphasised the benefits of user feedback to ensure that everyone can get online in an accessible way”
Watch our Accessibility playlist on YouTube
What next
We will continue to raise awareness and engage with organisations on this topic. We are launching a book about Digital Accessibility at the National Eisteddfod in August.
We also need to see tangible changes because of this work. We will be offering service assessments to the public sector to explore how well they are meeting the Digital Service Standards for Wales – including the principle ‘make sure everyone can use the service’ and providing further advice and guidance based on what we find.
Book your place for the accessibility book launch at the National Eisteddfod.