Accessibility Audit and Usability Assessment

Embedding continuous improvement with Wokingham Borough Council

Wokingham Borough’s objective was to embed a process of continuous improvement for their digital services, making them easier to use and more focused on customer needs and bring their 11 platforms up to the WCAG 2.1 compliance regulations.

Results at a glance

Accessibility improvements identified

User journeys analysed

Week turnaround

Identifying Accessibility and Usability Improvements

Supported by RNIB, we conducted an Accessibility Audit on all of the platforms required, to identify the opportunities to improve the accessible experience for their users. Our experts conducted a compliance audit and usability assessment to then identify technical and publishing failures using automated and manual testing. Findings are then categorised into minor, major and critical issues and support was provided to resolve.

“Ryan and the team were great at supporting the developers when it came to fixing certain issues as there was no internal resource that could help. They were also very patient with me when I wanted the data displayed in a different way to make it easier for us to work through the areas of failure. The results were a great piece of insight that I could use internally to support our need to make our website accessible for all.“

Sarah Zama

Wokingham Borough Council

Further results of the project

In just 4 weeks, we completed an in-depth report detailing the identified accessibility and usability failures and recommendations.
Our UX team delivered a full handover (including a detailed presentation) of the report to Wokingham Borough Council’s developer team, explaining the major accessibility failures.
There were 33 user journeys identified as high priority, 3 on each of the 11 platforms.
We then offered a further 30 days support to them for any questions or assistance that was required.

Project at a glance

The scope

Discover any user experience issues and determine the levels of priorities for areas of improvement identified.
Complete an in-depth comprehensive accessibility audit of the Wokingham Borough Council website and sub-sites (Fostering Site/ Dinton Pastures / Children in Care) along with a usability assessment, highlighting any and all accessibility failures/advisories to the Wokingham Borough Council team.

The process

First thing we do is highlight the scope and identify the key pages across the website that need to be audited (Home pages/ key content/ headers and footers).
Once we had approval, we conducted an audit against WCAG 2.1 AA standards.
Alongside this, we carried out a usability assessment of the entire site.
All the findings were then documented into a spreadsheet for analysis and evaluation.

The challenges

Numerous opportunities to improve Accessibility were identified.
Wokingham Borough Council’s developers then needed to go back in after the audit to fix the failures.
The functionality of their site was extremely hard to navigate, especially as an accessibility user that needed to use a keyboard to navigate.

"It was great working alongside RNIB with the Wokingham Borough team. Sarah’s passion for accessibility really shone through and facilitated a collaborative approach with end users at the heart of our approach"

Ryan Taylor

Invuse Project Lead

The project team

About Wokingham Borough Council

The Borough offers a high quality of life with good schools and long life expectancies. The area is diverse, made up of 17 parishes and towns with different characters. It’s a blend of countryside and town with history, leisure facilities and up-to-date facilities. The Wokingham area had the highest rate of business growth in the UK over the past 15 years according to Thames Valley Enterprise. This is reflected by a mix of local market trading and big business.

Wokingham Borough went to tender to establish the best supplier to achieve their goals. Invuse were chosen by them to lead the project, in partnership with RNIB, due to our passion for accessibility and giving users a voice. We pride ourselves on accessibility and will go above and beyond to not only meet the standards, but exceed them, to help the customers and give them guidance.

About The Royal National Institute of Blind People

The RNIB, is one of the UK’s leading sight loss charities and the largest community of blind and partially sighted people.

They recognise everyone’s unique experience of sight loss and offer help and support for blind and partially sighted people – this can be anything from practical and emotional support, campaigning for change, reading services and products in their online shop.

RNIB are a catalyst for change – inspiring people with sight loss to transform their own personal experience, their community and, ultimately, society as a whole. Their focus is on giving them the help, support and tools they need to realise their aspirations.