Department of Social and Family Affairs
We've helped the Department with the accessibility of both their internal systems and their website by providing auditing, user testing and general consultancy.
One of our senior consultants spent a week working in the Department on their client management and benefit tracking system. For part of that time, he was joined by our assistive technology expert who, being blind himself, is an experienced screen reader user. Being on-site allowed us to thoroughly assess the accessibility of the system while developing a close relationship with the Department's staff, showing them how accessibility issues affect users. We were able to suggest many changes to the user interface that will bring it in line with software accessibility guidelines and allow the system to be used in future by staff with disabilities.
For the Department's website, welfare.ie, we carried out a full audit and a user test involving eight users with disabilities and assistive technologies. The Department's staff were able to attend all the tests, meet the users and remotely observe the sessions in our purpose built user testing facility. Adopting this inclusive design process not only helped them understand and remedy the site's accessibility issues, but also resulted in them winning the Accessibility category at the 2008 Irish eGovernment Awards.
"The user testing highlighted things we couldn't possibly have thought of in the development process." – DSFA
You can read more about the website work in our welfare.ie case study.