“Accessibility is a fundamental principle in digital product development. And it’s not for a sector of the user base, it’s for everyone. Thinking about accessibility from the beginning is paramount. It not only saves time and money, but it also helps define the project.” Fritz von Runte, Service and UX Designer 

Purpose behind the collective

Following on from the last blog post introducing our new Accessibility Collective, we are pleased to announce that this service is now fully live in London and Bristol.

The purpose behind building this collective is to provide a service for recruiting people who use assistive technology or those who require additional support to access online services, which fits with the agile sprint cycle that many of our clients use to support an iterative approach to design.

The goal is to empower both designers and those who want to share their experiences to improve the digital landscape and increase accessibility. Despite the amazing work of organisations such as W3C to define standards, the feedback we regularly get from participants is that much of the web is still not accessible for many people.

A streamlined process

The streamlined process allows clients to view brief profiles of the people who are part of the Accessibility Collective and select the mix of people which best suits the requirements of the project. Profiles include impairments and medical conditions, devices owned, occupation, types of session they are happy to participate in and more.

As participants have opted-in to the collective and been pre-screened, it is simply a case of booking the relevant people in to suitable time slots. The People for Research team then takes all participants through our standard confirmation process, which promotes attendance across all research projects and helps us to achieve a 98% rate of attendance.

This service can be used in conjunction with our standard participant recruitment process for all kinds of research, from usability and in-depth user research sessions, to longitudinal research such as diary studies. We are working on building a collective in other locations based on requirements of key clients, so please get in touch with suggestions.

Cathryn Innocent, Senior Project Manager & Diversity and Inclusion Ambassador

If you would like to find out more about our in-house participant recruitment service for user testing or market research get in touch on 0117 921 0008 or info@peopleforresearch.co.uk.

At People for Research, we recruit participants for UX and usability testing and market research. We work with award winning UX agencies across the UK and partner up with a number of end clients who are leading the way with in-house user experience and insight.