.svg){kind=icon}
The client
The East London Inclusive Enterprise Zone (ELIEZ) was an accessible, specially designed community for entrepreneurs, business leaders and design thinkers who are disabled or whose work focuses on people with disabilities. Led by UCL and partners including the London Legacy Development Corporation, Plexal, Disability Rights UK and Barclays, the programme enrolled over 30 entrepreneurs - helping them accelerate products and services that address unmet needs, from idea stage through to deployment.
Bravand's involvement
Bravand ran several streams of work with ELIEZ, including writing and delivering a series of accessible online workshops as part of the programme's Lunch and Learn sessions. Topics covered included building a community on social media, Branding 101 with Collette Philip, and a Beginner's Guide to User Research with Ross Musgrove.
From workshop to guide
Following an Accessible Comms workshop attended by over 60 people - a mix of the ELIEZ cohort and partners - a number of participants, including ELIEZ Project Lead at UCL Bhavna Malkani, got in touch asking for further help producing communications for all.
This led to UCL commissioning Bravand to produce a full Accessible Communications guide, building on the workshop learnings. Written by Jonathan Holden and designed by Emma Wood, the guide has since been shared widely across UCL's partner network - reaching organisations including Barclays Eagle Labs, Capital Enterprise, Disability Rights UK, the Global Disability Innovation Hub, the Greater London Authority, Hackney Council, Inclusion London, London Legacy Development Corporation, Plexal and the University of the Arts London, among others.
You can read the guide to Accessible Social Communications here.
Why this matters to us
"Our work is all about designing and building products and services that help people complete tasks using the web. So it was a bit of a revelation to learn that the things we were designing and building were actually excluding people. For years, people with a disability have been an afterthought - or not thought about at all. That should not be.
We realised we had the opportunity to change the script but we lacked the experience and capability to do so. So we found and started working with Jonathan Holden. Jonathan is now an integral part of Team Bravand, helping us shift accessibility thinking left - so we're focused on designing for everyone from the start.
Too often we define people by their disability. But we believe that people are largely disabled by the barriers that are put up to stop them living their life autonomously. It is up to all of us to break this cycle."
Ross Musgrove, Insight and Strategy Director, Bravand
Want to make your digital communications more accessible?
Accessibility isn't a one-time fix - it's a way of working. We can help you get started. Get in touch with the Bravand team.
