Celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) across the Kin + Carta Group
On May 16th 2019 Kin + Carta will be taking part in the 8th annual Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). Ben Campbell talks about why it’s such a crucial issue and the importance of designing with empathy for an accessible web.
This blog was written by Ben Campbell and originally posted here.
Let’s start with the basic facts. In the UK, 1 in 5 people have a disability that affects their ability to access the web. This could be visual, hearing, motor or cognitive (affecting memory and processing)¹. An estimated 253 million people in the world live with vision impairment: 36 million are blind and 217 million have moderate to severe vision impairment..
For those of us in the world of digital, this is a major challenge. If these people can’t access the web then they’re losing a fundamental right to access the news and knowledge the rest of us take for granted. For our clients it means millions of people unable to learn about their products, services or messages.
At Kin + Carta we have a passionate Connective of businesses who take physical and digital accessibility very seriously. Before we begin to design or build any digital experience for our clients, we first start thinking about ways in which people will access and use the service or product.