Accessibility
Dos and don'ts on designing for accessibility
Karwai Pun is an interaction designer currently working on Service Optimisation to make existing and new services better for our users. Karwai is part of an accessibility group at Home Office Digital, leading on autism. Together with the team, she’s created these …
Designing for people with limited English
People who depend on Home Office services, such as visas, passports and asylum, are often not fluent in English.
This means important information in application forms, guidance pages and other tasks may be difficult to understand.
We have identified 10 evidence-based principles to follow when designing content for people with limited English:
People who depend on Home Office services, such as visas, passports and asylum, are often not fluent in English.
This means important information in application forms, guidance pages and other tasks may be difficult to understand.
We have identified 10 evidence-based principles to follow when designing content for people with limited English:
Writing hyperlink text for better web accessibility
As you might have noticed if you've been subscribed to Plain English Weekly from the start, the team at Scope share lots of brilliant resources. This piece on link text is excellent and if you or anyone on your team is susceptible to writing links that say 'click here' or something similar, please pass it on!
Make your text and documents accessible - Help - University of Kent
From using heading styles and QR codes to writing meaningful link text, this is a super page of guidance on the University of Kent's website. This is also a good time to tell you that I once wrote about how to write good hyperlinks too.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible. Following these guidelines will make content more accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including accommodations for blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity, and combinations of these, and some accommodation for learning disabilities and cognitive limitations; but will not address every user need for people with these disabilities. These guidelines address accessibility of web content on desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. Following these guidelines will also often make Web content more usable to users in general.
Introduction to Web Accessibility
Plain English is all about using clear language to make content easier to read and understand for everyone. But it's just one part of making accessible websites.
If you work in content and want to get a better grip on web accessibility essentials, I strongly recommend this introduction from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It's very much one for your bookmarks.
Designing services for people who need help with numbers
A superb resource if you create content that includes plenty of numbers. Led by Laura Parker, this project helps you present numbers and data more clearly. It includes the thinking and evidence as well as practical advice you can use in your own work right away. Lovely stuff.