Ready for the new UK public sector accessibility regulations?
With the new Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations (PSBAR) coming into play on 23rd September 2020, public services have been working to improve the accessibility of their websites, but there is still a lot to be done to make sure that everyone can access all services in the same way – especially in the private sector where these guidelines are not mandatory.
The new regulations, (which apply to local government, police forces, fire and rescue services, NHS organisations, and universities / colleges) mean that:
- All public sector existing websites and internal sites must be accessible.
- Videos and audio published after 23rd September must be accessible.
- Each website must have an updated and compliant accessibility statement with the relevant legal wording included.
What the government is hinting at is: accessibility requirements are no longer a ‘nice-to-have’, but should be seen as a priority and an absolute necessity for all businesses and organisations in the long run (not just the public sector).
However, we know that recruiting disabled participants to take part in user research still represents a major challenge. We have been working to raise awareness about the importance of testing for accessibility both amongst our community of participants and within the UX industry since 2016, when we launched our #MakeTheWebAccessible campaign.
Four years later, this is what we are currently doing at People for Research to support your user recruitment needs.
Making sure our community’s voice is heard
It’s important for us to involve our community of participants at every stage of the recruitment process. That includes going to our disabled community members and asking them to share their feedback with us on a regular basis.
- Four disabled users speak out about lack of accessibility during COVID-19
- Inclusivity tips from 5 members of the PFR Accessibility Collective
Sharing knowledge
Ahead of the 23rd September, we published our big accessibility round-up on Medium, an extensive list of recent articles by experts, useful advice we gathered around the web, and insightful online events happening soon, but that’s not all we have been sharing. Take a look:
Answering your questions
Whether it is via online research, browsing social media or questions submitted during one of our webinars, we like to know what topics are trending and what questions are being asked by researchers and UXers.
Growing our Accessibility Collective
Have you heard about our Accessibility Collective? Due to growing demand, we are currently adding new members to our Collective. If you need participants for accessibility research or testing, the Accessibility Collective means you can select them yourself based on anonymised profiles available online, with a fixed price per participant and a reduced lead time.
