With the new Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations (PSBAR) coming into play on 23rd September, public services have been working to improve the accessibility of their websites, but there is still a lot to be done to make sure that everyone can access all services in the same way – especially in the private sector where these guidelines are not mandatory.

The new regulations, (which apply to local government, police forces, fire and rescue services, NHS organisations, and universities / colleges) mean that:

+ All public sector existing websites and internal sites must be accessible.
+ Videos and audio published after 23rd September must be accessible.
+ Each website must have an updated and compliant accessibility statement with the relevant legal wording included.

What the government is hinting at is: accessibility requirements are no longer a ‘nice to have’, but should be seen as a priority and an absolute necessity for all businesses and organisations in the long run (not just the public sector).

However, we know that recruiting disabled participants to take part in user research still represents a major challenge. We have been working to raise awareness about the importance of testing for accessibility both amongst our community of participants and within the UX industry since 2016, when we launched our #MakeTheWebAccessible campaign.

Four years later, this is what we are currently doing at People for Research to support your user recruitment needs.

🚀 Making sure our community’s voice is heard

It’s important for us to involve our community of participants at every stage of the recruitment process. That includes going to our disabled community members and asking them to share their feedback with us on a regular basis.

+ Four disabled users speak out about lack of accessibility during COVID-19

+ 7 users share their struggles navigating the (sometimes inaccessible) digital world

🚀 Sharing knowledge

Ahead of the 23rd September, we published our Big accessibility round-up on Medium, an extensive list of recent articles by experts, useful advice we gathered around the web, and insightful online events happening soon, but that’s not all we have been sharing. Take a look:

+ Accessibility in surveys: a guide to inclusive unmoderated tasks

+ Designing for accessibility: 10 experts share the challenges they’ve faced

+ People who get accessibility right

🚀 Teaming up with the experts

We like to learn from the best, so we have kept busy partnering up with experts like Gavin Neate, Fritz von Runte or William Britton.

+ Digital inclusion: designing accessible research with AutonoMe

+ Learning from sensitive research around life-limiting illness

+ Applying the social model of disability to UX design

+ Q&A with founder of Neatebox: a neat(e) approach to user experience design

+ Digital product specialist Fritz von Runte: what accessibility isn’t

🚀 Answering your questions

Whether it is via online research, browsing social media or questions submitted during one of our webinars, we like to know what topics are trending and what questions are being asked by researchers and UXers.

+ 10 questions asked by user researchers & designers during the pandemic

+ #UXChat with Jess Lewes: “talking to the users is a given!”

+ Q&A: your top questions about remote user research and recruitment

🚀 Growing our Accessibility Collective

Have you heard about our Accessibility Collective? Due to growing demand, we are currently adding new members to our Collective. If you need participants for accessibility research or testing, the Accessibility Collective means you can select them yourself based on anonymised profiles available online, with a fixed price per participant and a reduced lead time.

To find out more about the Accessibility Collective, click here.

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.