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https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2013/09/09/talking-accessibility-at-ustwo/

Talking accessibility at ustwo

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: GDS team, GOV.UK

Back in May of this year I tweeted about how impressed I was that London-based agency ustwo had released an update to their "Pixel Perfect Precision" handbook, which included a new section on accessibility.

The handbook, written so that new members of their team can quickly get up to speed on how they're expected to work, was notable in that it pushed accessibility as a skill designers and developers should be giving consideration to. That it does so in such an open and inviting way is a great thing.

As the Accessibility Lead for the GDS I spend my time sharing that view; across the GDS, and across wider government, and the web community. I was contacted by ustwo and invited to go and speak to their designers and front-end developers about my role in the GDS, how we work, and the kinds of things that accessibility here encompasses.

The talk was a success so I found myself back there again last Thursday, this time to talk to their developers. This talk focussed more on how we test the products we're building, and the kinds of problems we focus on, as well as a lengthy discussion of how we apply that to our agile development approach.

I'm always interested in speaking with other teams about how they approach accessibility, and it's always good to share experiences and approaches so that we can all move the web forward for everybody.

The questions that happen after the talk are always the most interesting part of the talks for me. If the slides and my speaking notes provoke any further questions I'll be happy to continue the points here, and if anyone has and requests for me to come share our approach directly, I'll be happy to talk about that too.

Thanks again to ustwo for the invitation!

Follow Josh on Twitter: @partiallyblind

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2 comments

  1. Comment by Irene Melo posted on

    Very interesting presentations. The new layout on the guide (first presentation) follows a design that I have been implementing for some time with great results. Its good that it's working for GOV.UK too.

  2. Comment by Chris Shimmin-Vincent posted on

    I think accessibility is something that many organisations think they don't need to worry about or even deal with. We have a good section on our site that deals with this for not just our Content Editors but also for a wider audience.