Making a difference to the lives of disabled people with accessible, inclusive website design.
About the client
Difference is a registered charity that campaigns for the rights of disabled people across the North East.
The charity’s mission is to end discrimination, increase equality, and change perceptions of disability in the region. To accomplish this, it encourages people to sign up as members and contribute their voices to campaigns and find a sense of community.
Recognising a need to transform its outdated website into a more accessible and informative resource, Difference approached Content By The Sea. They needed a complete refresh that could encapsulate the charity’s core values, offer education on topics related to disability, and encourage potential members to get involved.
Our approach
As a charity that means a lot to its members, we began by conducting interviews with stakeholders and assessing user needs to identify a set of key requirements for the website, both in terms of visual identity and information hierarchy.
We also conducted Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) research to help Difference widen its audience and find prospective members making question-based searches around various disability topics.
Difference already had a wealth of information addressing these topics on its website, but it was frequently obscured by confusing navigation and page structure.
Taking our new understanding of user and stakeholder needs, we then mapped out a user journey against the existing content, finding new ways to categorise them and craft a site structure based on intent.
Throughout development, we used wireframing and prototyping to allow the Difference team to physically interact with it and gauge real-world functionality from a disabled person’s perspective. This helped us make changes that weren’t based on assumption, but on the tangible reality of Difference’s users.
The challenges
The biggest challenge for Difference was to take an information-heavy website that had a defined brand palette and craft that into a new, more engaging site that met the highest standards of web accessibility (WCAG AAA standard).
We used this as an opportunity to learn more about accessibility. Rather than treating the WCAG guidelines as a checklist, we instead built a deeper understanding of how disabled people experience digital websites and became experts in accessible design.
Overcoming this challenge was the foundation for Ellen’s new passion in accessible design and inspired Access:Given.
What the client said:
“We have worked with CBTS since October of last year, and they have been an excellent development partner. They conducted thorough diagnostics and familiarisation with the project, they were open to learn from us about what our objectives were and created a bespoke, accessible website based on our needs. We are really happy about how our working relationship has developed and we appreciate the time they took to really understand what we were all about.
We also appreciated the patient and gentle way that they worked with us, as sometimes I think we came across as a bit shouty! We also really enjoyed working with neurodivergent content developers who provided insight into access issues experienced by neurodivergent people, improving the access of our website on all different levels. We look forward to continuing the relationship to ensure we are always on top of making our website as digitally accessible as possible.”
– Christopher Hartworth, Development Director.
