There’s no question: competitive brands need to build accessibility into their platforms to get ahead.

Expanding your customer base, making your website or app easier to use, boosting your brand’s reputation, increasing revenue – these are just a handful of reasons why organisations should consider accessibility.

Our Accessibility Services can help you achieve this.

How it works

Although every client and assessment is different, we follow the same framework:

  1. Introduction: After contacting us, we’ll get in touch to tailor your assessment and work out next steps.
  2. Certificate: You’ll receive an ‘in progress’ certificate to display on your platform, which shows you’re committed to making your content accessible.
  3. Delivery: We’ll start with a ‘human’ assessment, where our team will manually check your platform, followed by an automated assessment, which can cover up to 22,000 pages of content.
  4. Report: You’ll be sent a full report that highlights key areas to improve.
  5. Adjustments: You’ll have 6 months to implement our recommendations.
  6. Retest: We’ll ensure your improvements meet the right standards. We’ll then be able to award accreditation .

If you’re not sure about committing to a full assessment, you could try our free snapshot tool, which gives a top-level overview of any accessibility issues on your platform.

What’s covered

The impairments we support include visual (eyes), hearing (ears), cognitive (brain) and dexterity (movement). We also look at screen reader and colour contrast tools, which affect how a screen displays. Impairments can cover lots of different conditions, which means you’ll be improving your platform for a wide range of people.

Because our teams have lived experience of disability, we can also pick up what a computer might miss. For example, website forms (like entering card details for a payment) often need each section to be filled out before submitting them. If a section hasn’t been completed, it might flag as incomplete – but the person who’s testing it might realise that it’s not accessible enough to fill out in the first place. This often happens when forms have drop-down lists (for example, selecting your house number from a list of addresses).

Why use Shaw Trust?

  • We understand accessibility: Over 20 team members are involved across our Accessibility Services, many of them with lived experience of disabilities. They’ll test your platform in the same way they’d use and experience it as a customer. On top of this, we run extensive computer testing, so you get the best of both worlds.
  • We work to WCAG guidelines: An acronym for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, these are a set of international standards for making online platforms accessible. Content must be understandable, operable (i.e. easy to use) and robust (able to work with assistive tools, like screen readers). Once tested and updated, your platform will be awarded a grade – with AA the average accreditation.
  • We live our values: Our Accessibility Services reflect our charity’s values. We care about people, their purpose, their potential and their overall quality of life.

Book your audit today

From requesting your free snapshot to arranging a full-scale assessment, we can help. Get in touch with our team to find out more, or book yours today: Accessibility-Services@Shaw-Trust.org.uk