Introducing my Vision

 In 2017 I had a vision of educating a workforce to make inclusive documents so my colleague and others like her could do their job without barriers.


After research outside as well as inside work I came up with SCULPT for Accessibility. This was a set of basic principles to underpin awareness and skills for the application of basic accessibility features in documents.

These basics can make the fundamental difference between people being able to use your content or not, and by this I mean not just websites, I mean everyday materials. Because of the impact the basics can have SCULPT has become popular and recognised nationally as a great introductory way to train and make people aware of the underlying principles of accessibility. 

It was adopted first by Worcestershire County Council in early 2020 and was later made a mandatory skills model in April 2021 for the entire workforce. It was also shared as a good practice model with the wider community. Due to its welcomed simplicity of a subject often assumed as complex many have also adopted it in a mandatory capacity to promote a culture of awareness and responsibility.

However, it was only developed with only very basic principles for documents in mind and therefore limited. It doesn’t account for all issues, wider practices and skills that people need to be aware of. If it did it could easily underpin the foundations of basic training in accessibility awareness and principles in every organisation across every walk of life. That could mean every public body, every business and every curriculum. 

These basics could potentially influence every design decision made by everyone in all of those walks of life, not only in digital content but printed material too. I’ve seen so much poor practice recently such as white writing on yellow or light grey background, no captions on videos and complex language and abbreviations in everyday materials.  

My ambition is to develop SCULPT to build in the wider principles of awareness but still keep its simplicity. 

I have already shared my initial ideas of the model and thoughts on it with a range of key influencers in the sector and digital accessibility community this week (my week off). I’ve also been sharing the research vision with Professors at my local university to pursue this as a potential PHD or a we’ll structured  research project.

WATCH THIS SPACE!!! I want to bring you all on my journey to develop a nationally recognised introductory skills and awareness framework for digital (and information) accessibility.

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