1.3 billion people worldwide (16% of the total population) experience significant disability.¹

Digital accessibility is about designing and building digital products that can be used by everyone, regardless of ability or impairment, in different environments and on different devices. It's also a legal requirement in many countries (for example in the UK under the Equality Act of 2010).

Websites and applications designed with accessibility in mind are measurably easier to use, not only by people with disabilities such as impaired vision, limited mobility or cognitive difficulties, but also by neurodivergent users (e.g. people with dyslexia) and others who could experience difficulties using a digital service in particular situations (e.g. when using a phone in bright sunlight, or in a noisy environment).

Designing with accessibility in mind can help meet the legal obligation to support equality of access and will also benefit any organisation seeking to grow its audience and recruit new members or customers. Making content more accessible means that more people can read and understand it.

So what is the IET doing to improve the accessibility of our digital services?

We monitor the accessibility of our websites using a range of automated tools and manual checks against the widely recognised WCAG standard, and we’ve recently begun to publish detailed accessibility statements for individual sites, alongside our global accessibility statement at https://www.theiet.org/help/accessibility 

During 2023, a project to re-build our main corporate websites on upgraded technology allowed us to make some significant changes to raise the accessibility conformance level of these high-traffic sites (including www.theiet.org), removing barriers such as navigation lacking keyboard operability, poor or missing visual focus indicators, visual elements without alternative text descriptions, inadequate colour contrast and insufficient line spacing in text.

Also in 2023, we were able to engage leading UK accessibility consultancy AbilityNet to carry out user testing of Career Manager, our flagship service for professional development. Observing users with significant visual impairments attempting (and sometimes failing) to carry out basic tasks using the interface provided valuable insight, and the product team has focused on implementing key recommendations arising from the tests.

More recently, a group of IET colleagues from the IT and Marketing teams were able to join a tour of Google’s UK Accessibility Discovery Centre (ADC) in King’s Cross, London. The ADC opened in 2022, and Google describes it as “a space where our engineers, researchers, product teams and partners can build new kinds of accessible technologies to remove more of the barriers that people with disabilities face every day”. The ADC aims to foster empathy and collaboration, helping product teams to iterate their designs to maximise inclusivity.

The visit reinforced our understanding that simplicity and collaboration are keys to good accessibility. Google has partnered with organisations such as the RNIB and Everyone Can to better understand the needs of people with disabilities and to design solutions to meet those needs, using standard technologies where possible.

We aim to improve the accessibility of our IET products and services by following a similar approach, for example by working with our Disability and Neurodiversity Inclusion Network to learn from IET colleagues living with a range of disabilities. We’d welcome comments from members of the EngX community about any specific accessibility challenges you may have come across when using the platform: you can get in touch by email to ux@theiet.org or by commenting below.

Whilst we recognise that there’s a lot still to do, the IET is committed to working to create the best possible services for all our customers, colleagues and members, regardless of how they see, hear, physically engage with or cognitively understand the world. It’s not all about the technology, but also about engaging people and building an inclusive culture that emphasises the value of accessibility for all in engineering a better world.

Free resources on digital accessibility, including factsheets and recordings of short webinars:
https://abilitynet.org.uk/free-tech-support-and-info 

Information about Global Accessibility Awareness Day (16 May 2024):
https://accessibility.day/ 

For more information about Google’s ADC, see:
https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/united-kingdom/the-accessibility-discovery-centre-is-open-for-collaboration/ 

1. World Health Organization: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/disability-and-health