This week the weather has certainly changed for the worst, let’s hope summer is just around the corner.

Here’s what we’ve been up to this week:

  • Laura joined a couple of access request alpha meetings this week with CGI who are developing a proof of concept for access requests to be part of the customer platform
  • Laura agreed to do some iterations on the flood risk assessment application form – minor tweaks to improve the information coming to the team
  • Phil and Laura met with the species subject matter expert to run through some routing redesigns in the ‘change a species licence’ prototype – it was all really positive and they all agreed to focus on getting the prototype agreed asap
  • Jane and Sam led a show-and-tell for the Welsh Government UX community this week, demonstrating their work to improve a forestry service. They shared how they’ve been collaborating with SMEs, using tools like Miro to support their process, and involving users throughout to shape better outcomes. The session also highlighted the evolution of the service, with a before-and-after look at content and forms. It sparked some valuable conversations and new connections that they’re keen to build on.
  • The customer platform beta project continues, with Toyah spending her time mostly on error messages, translation liaison and the content design of some of the more ‘standalone’ form screens.

As an extra treat this week….Sophie recently attended an event looking at design principles for cognitive accessibility. Here is the story:

Global accessibility day – designing with autistic people. Inclusive design that benefits everyone

Last month, Sophie attended an event that looked at design principles for cognitive accessibility, and how inclusive digital experiences can better support autistic users - and everyone.

The event was led by the incredibly knowledgeable Irina Rusakova, whose focus on accessibility has been consistent during her work as a designer. Driven by a desire to better understand how digital experiences can support neurodivergent users, she led a research project exploring the design needs of the autistic community.

Finding the existing guidance fragmented and incomplete, Irina worked directly with autistic people to co create a set of practical design principles. These principles aim to make digital products more accessible and welcoming to the autistic community and, in doing so, improve experiences for everyone.

A key takeaway from this event is that the concept of “normal” is diverse. There are many forms of diversity, from age, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, culture to physical ability, technical literacy, language ability and neurodiversity.

Neurodiversity definition: “Neurodiversity is a concept where neurological differences are to be recognised and respected as any other human variation. These differences can include those labels with Dyspraxia, Dyslexia, ADHD, Autistic Spectrum, Tourette Syndrome and others.”

When it comes to neurodiversity, between 15-20% of the UK popular is considered ‘neurodiverse’ or 1 in 7 people. For conditions like autism where 0.5 to 1.3% of the population is autistic, this amounts to 700,000 people in the UK living with autism.

This means a lot of people in our day to day lives could benefit from inclusive design that works for everyone.

In the session, we saw how different ways of styling and laying out information can be perceived to different users. Sophie enjoyed a thought-provoking discussion around the importance of colour contrast to help users consume large quantities of information without being overwhelmed.

Best practice for content creation means being aware of the impact of poor colour contrast on neurodiverse users as well as the importance of clear, logical headings and subheadings to break up long form content

We were reminded of the importance of building logical titles and subheadings into our content to support user journeys, as well as using clear simple language to communicate effectively.

It is clear to see that inclusion fuels innovation, for example in products like the electric toothbrush, audiobooks, subtitles and captions to flexible straws and pavement curb cuts. Sometimes we design a tool to support one user group that ends up making everyone’s lives easier, and that’s the best way to approach the matter of accessibility and inclusion.

Sophie left the session with clarity and motivation to continue improving our website and its online services to ensure as many users as possible can complete tasks without overwhelm. The talk and the insights shared by Irina were invaluable to our work as a Digital Team and will be incorporated into our ongoing guidance for subject matter experts who create content for the public.