Accessibility: why it matters

Accessibility is something that’s always been close to my heart, so I wanted to write a little more about why I think it’s so important.

It’s a very easy buzzword to throw around, but in XPS Client Communications it’s something we try to put front and centre, rather than just paying lip-service.

The logical place to start is by giving 'accessibility’ some sort of a definition, since it is used in so many different contexts. Sometimes it’s used to mean specific adaptations to make things work for people with specific needs, for example the visually impaired may need large-font or Braille/audio versions of some documents.

But for me it’s much wider than that.

Accessibility is not just about making sure that our graphics still work if you are colour-blind - it’s about trying to be genuinely inclusive so that as many members as possible can understand whatever message it is that we’re trying to put out there.

The thing that I always have in the back of my mind is an incident from when I was new to pension communications (an embarrassingly long time ago), when I went up to visit my grandparents.

My Grandad excitedly showed me his Summary Funding Statement, the first one he’d received, as it was a new requirement at that point. He was convinced that the message it was trying to convey was that his pension scheme would pay for his funeral costs. Of course, it was saying nothing of the sort, but the density and complexity of the language had left him sufficiently baffled for other random ideas to come into his head.

The sadness of that, and the danger posed by unintelligible language, has really never left me.

In some ways, it can be incredibly challenging to try to implement more accessible communications strategies, because what works for one person isn’t necessarily right for everyone. I imagine many of the recipients of that same Summary Funding Statement found it perfectly clear.

And sometimes, adaptations that work for some people may not work for others. For example using graphics can often make things easier to understand, but they may not work well for anyone using a screen reader.

But the fact that accessibility is a difficult aim shouldn’t put us off doing our best to achieve it at every turn.

I like to think of it as one of those things, like space travel, where developments made for very specific circumstances can end up with trickle-down benefits for lots of people - where would we be without the ballpoint pen?! I’d probably have much inkier fingers.

Having just likened pension communications to space travel (maybe a first), it’s probably helpful to bring things back to Earth with some more concrete thoughts. Having reviewed many of the guidance standards for printed documents, we try to stick as closely as we can to these by making our language simple and engaging, avoiding jargon, and considering the logical flow of ideas.

It’s not always easy to achieve, as sometimes there are stakeholders with very specific ideas about what is needed, but we’re committed to moving the dial as far as possible in favour of making things understandable to members.

?Of course, a lot of what makes a document accessible or not comes down to how it looks, and I’m glad to say that all of our excellent design colleagues (particularly the wonderful Tori J Watson ) also work hard at considering colour contrast, font legibility and balance of white space.

?So, in summary - the complexity of the subject matter will always ensure that there’s still a mountain to climb, but I am glad to be climbing it, and glad that as a team we are on the ascent.