Design like you give a damn!

Design like you give a damn!

Cross-Government Design meeting, 2016

@LeonieWatson

Two words

Government Accessibility

Different attitude

Design like you give a damn!

Design like you're Banksy

Graffiti people looking at graffiti
"Read the rule book, then rip it up and create something that challenges the accepted wisdom"

Digital revolution

Alpha objectives

Alpha outcomes

Within two months:

Alpha accessibility

Of the top 10 issues reported by users:

Beta objectives

"We want to make the most easy to use, accessible government website there has ever been. Merely ticking a box marked ‘accessible’ isn’t enough."

Beta design principles

"Accessible design is good design. Everything we build should be as inclusive, legible and readable as possible. If we have to sacrifice elegance — so be it."

Beta responsibility

We made accessibility everyone's responsibility

Beta accessibility

Gov.UK objectives

Design like you're Da Vinci

Ventruvian man
"Be curious about everything, and never stop questioning how you can make things better"

Accessibility people

Agile testing

Conformance testing

Accessibility testing

Rinse and repeat

Continue agile, conformance and accessibility testing throughout the service lifetime

Design like you're Chanel

Chanel adjusting a little black dress on a model
"Strive for beauty and elegance, but understand that those things will not be the same for everybody"

Screen reader experience

Software that converts on-screen content into synthetic speech or refreshable Braille

Back in the day

Content navigation (headings)

Content navigation (landmarks)

Content navigation (links)

Content interaction (forms)

DOM tree

DOM tree

Accessibility tree

Accessibility tree

Platform Accessibility APIs

Platform controls

Bold checkbox in Windows 10

Web control


<input type="checkbox" for="bold">
<label for="bold">Bold</label>

HTML Accessibility API Mappings (AAM)

The relationship between platform objects and web objects is documented in the HTML AAM

Design like you're Brunel

Brunel standing in front of huge iron anchor chains
"Know that planning is important, but that imagination makes the extraordinary possible"

Imagine if...

Imagine if...

Imagine if...

Imagine if...

What a difference we could make if we design like we give a damn!

Thank you

@LeonieWatson Leonie.Watson@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk