The East London Inclusive Enterprise Zone

“The web is for everyone”  
- Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web

Bravand is a collective of digital design and communication professionals that have a combined passion for community, people, planet and purpose.

Our job, day to day, is to work with organisations that want a go-to team, with a varied skill set, that can help them sort out:

• how they present themselves to the people they care about
• how they facilitate engagement with those people, and
• how they measure success

We do this mainly on screens - although we do the odd bit of print every now and then.

“The Web is for everyone” says Tim Berners-Lee, and he should know, because he invented the World Wide Web. As a concept, an idea, a notion, the web is accessible to everyone. 

Our work is all about designing and building products and services that help people complete tasks using the Web. So it was a bit of a revelation to learn that the things we were designing and building were actually excluding people.

In fact, for years, people with a disability have been an after-thought, or not thought about at all. That should not be. We realised we had the opportunity to change the script but we lacked the experience and capability to do so.

So, we found and started working with Jonathan Holden. Jonathan is now an integral part of Team Bravand, helping us to Shift Left accessibility thinking, so we’re focussed on designing for everyone. 

This is not a one-time exercise. Making our work accessible for all is an ongoing process and we’re learning all the time. Our work, the value it brings to the people that engage with it, is greater for it. 

Too often we define disabled people by their disability. But we believe that people are largely disabled by the barriers that are put up to stop them living their life autonomously. It is up to all of us to break this cycle.

I’m not claiming we’re perfect. I’m not saying we have all the answers. I’m saying we’re trying, and our ongoing work with Jonathan and this guide will help keep us designing for all and help others - like you - learn, too

<signature-text>Ross Musgrove<signature-text>, Bravand

Find Ross and the Bravand team on LinkedIn

Members of the ELIEZ Cohort and community wanted more information on Accessible Social Communications. With Bravand as a partner, Jonathan Holden ran a workshop on 25 February 2021 with around 60 participants. From the workshop, ELIEZ commissioned this guide which will be distributed to all 12 partners in the ELIEZ network. This is the first phase of an ongoing project. We will work with disabled audiences to continue learning and this will be a live document. Partners will strive to continue this piece of work beyond the programme (funding permitted). 

If you want to know more about the ELIEZ programme, email eliez@ucl.ac.uk

Website: Inclusive enterprise zone 

Twitter: East London Inclusive Enterprise Zone (ELIEZ) (@ELIEZ2020) 

<signature-text>Bhavna Malkani<signature-text>, East London Inclusive Enterprise Zone

“The dirty little secret of accessibility is that there’s no single correct way to make your content accessible, and no one-size-fits-all solution”
- Doug Schepers

One of the things I’ve learned on my journey into web accessibility is that for every use case, every opinion, every solution, there is an alternative. And that’s OK. Because in web accessibility, everyone is different. But this does mean that you might not please everyone all the time. 

I asked my disabled friends on social media ”What are your gripes about posts on social media?” They didn’t hold back! There were some common themes, but also some contradictory advice. 

The one constant is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. A framework to help make the web accessible to everyone. 

What I have written here is the way to follow these guidelines when creating Social Media Communications. It will help disabled people feel included in your brand. Whether people are blind, deaf, have epilepsy or Parkinson’s, or are disabled in any other way, follow the guidelines here, and you’ll make people happy. 

<signature-text>Jonathan Holden<signature-text>, Bravand Twitter @JonathanDHolden 

For comments on, or additions to this guide, email accessibility@bravand.com