EPIC: Review accessibility guidance

[sarawilcox]

Our analytics suggest that the accessibility guidance is not well used. Our WCAG 2.2 user research 2024 suggests that some professions (e.g. product and delivery, devs and designers) do not refer routinely or at all to the profession sections.

It would be worth reviewing the accessibility guidance - and how best to present accessibility requirements and best practice across:

• the design system
• the accessibility guidance
• the accessibility checklist
  Also taking into account cross-gov work on accessibility guidance and resources.

Can we better signpost and integrate the accessibility checklist in the service manual?

Related backlog tickets

• Check how the NHS.UK accessibility checklist impacts current accessibility guidance nhsuk-service-manual-community-backlog#403
• Add section on designing on different browsers and devices to accessibility guidance? #1896
• Identify where we can link between the style guide, the design system and the accessibility guidance #1593
• Accessibility guidance query - commonly used assistive technologies #978

[anandamaryon1]

Also from the 'WCAG 2.2 user research 2024', of the users that had used the per-profession accessibility guidance, they had accessed it when starting their role, as part of onboarding. They had not come back to it since.

Two thoughts:

• does this suggest that the accessibility content in general should be more integrated into the design system and content content guide?
• is there a distinction between content that is used routinely as a reference and content that is more akin to training or onboarding? Should these be treated differently in the Service Manual?

[sarawilcox]

Also, DigInclusion's report on the accessibility guidance identified that we could add more info on all WCAG 2.1 criteria. For now, we have decided not to do that and only to highlight the 6 new criteria - in addition to design system updates. We do not know if our users will want more detail about all WCAG 2.1 criteria (these are covered in the accessibility checklist anyway) but we suspect this will be too much info for them. Worth exploring as part of the review.

[sarawilcox]

There are also some accessibility resources on NHSE's CoE SharePoint, including some duplicate content.

[sarawilcox]

We will be carry out some user research into people's needs around accessibility guidance, starting June 2024, and how we can better meet those needs in the service manual.