Accessibility for the digital world
Breaking down barriers at RELX
Think about the websites you visit every day...
What are your favourite features of those sites? Do you enjoy flicking through the image galleries? Looking at the diagrams? Clicking on links to other interesting sites?
RELX is committed to ensuring our products and services are accessible and easy to use by everyone, including people who may experience some type of disability. Accessibility supports different ways of learning and interacting, and makes user experiences easier and more efficient for everyone.
Ted Gies, User Experience Lead Specialist at Elsevier says:
“As a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers, we have an obligation to open up our wonderful products and services to everyone. When it comes down to it, ensuring a website or product can be used by everyone is a civil right - and in some cases it’s the law.”
Meet some of our people who are championing accessibility at RELX:
TED GIES, UX LEAD SPECIALIST AT ELSEVIER
Tell us about yourself
I’ve worked in User Experience (UX) for over 20 years doing user research, design, accessibility and policy development. In my spare time I love to run and I enjoy spending time with my wife and three sons, who provide me with a nuclear reactor of energy.
What is your role?
I lead the Elsevier Digital Accessibility Team, the RELX Accessibility Working Group and the Elsevier Accessibility Guild. My team champions digital accessibility by acting as an internal consultancy, driving best practice in UX and accessibility across products. We drive policy, standards compliance and innovative use of technology. When someone asks, “is this product accessible?”, we are equipped to provide the elevator pitch, the thesis and the remedy if it isn’t.
Tell us something about accessibility
I have a friend who is blind and uses a screen reader on his iPhone to check emails, and even book or change flight arrangements. When using the screen reader and a touch screen, he can extract key information quicker than I can, as a person with full vision. The key in the user-friendliness of any digital experience is the accessibility chain between the device (e.g. iPhone), the app and the content. If any of these are inaccessible, the chain breaks.
What are some of the key accessibility projects in your business?
We provide expert guidance on accessibility across Elsevier. We support our sales and legal teams with customer inquiries around accessibility, and create and manage standard accessibility compliance documents. At a higher level we help set the company’s accessibility standards with our branding and design libraries so that all products inherit the same accessible patterns. We have also developed a system where employees can go through structured training to develop the knowledge and skillsets needed for a compliant and accessible user experience. We use data to inform our accessibility direction including the latest standards, user feedback and automated testing.
How has your accessibility work helped customers?
We have hundreds of customers who require accessible products. Our team meets with customer accessibility teams to test tools, techniques and standards. Because of our expertise and collaborative approach, customers trust Elsevier to be a provider of accessible solutions.
Mark Guisinger, Principal UX Designer at Lexisnexis risk solutions
Tell us about yourself
I’ve been working in UX for 23 years, in the automotive, insurance, legal and risk industries. I’ve been interested in accessibility since 1998, when US Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act requiring Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. I have two beautiful daughters who have me wrapped around their fingers and I have a passion for American muscle cars - I currently have a 1968 SS396 Camaro and a 1973 Corvette Stingray.
Tell us something about accessibility
I was drawn into accessibility as my wife’s best friend is legally blind. I wanted to help her use the internet and live independently. Another great thing about working in accessibility is that you can have an immediate impact on the lives of the millions who live with disabilities. Where else can you do that?
What are some of your key accessibility projects?
One of our key accessibility projects has been the creation of the a11yCAT (accessibility with computer automated testing). This tool was born out of two needs - the time it takes to manually scan an application to create a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) and to help developers produce compliant code from the start (instead of catching issues at the end and going back to retrofit fixes).
Maíra Ximenes, User Experience Designer at Risk & Business Analytics
Tell us about yourself
I have recently switched careers from Policy Research into UX Design, and was lucky enough to land a job supporting various businesses within the Risk and Business Analytics market segment in the Netherlands. I thoroughly enjoy using design as a way to facilitate people’s lives. In my spare time I like to read, walk my dog and practice aerial acrobatics.
What is your role?
I joined the business in September 2019 as a Junior UX Designer. Our office is based in Amsterdam and I currently work with both our products: XpertHR and Nextens. Part of my role is to support our UX researcher to identify who our users are and what they need. What is most interesting about this job is its interdisciplinary nature: the need to combine disciplines such as psychology, data analysis, linguistics, and business, in order to come up with the best solutions for the users.
Tell us something about accessibility
Having grown up in Brazil, a country where almost 25 percent of the population has some kind of disability, I have seen the daily struggle of people with disabilities in various ways. Working with web accessibility and being part of the Accessibility Advisory Board has given me a strong sense of purpose in my role as a UX designer. It feels great to think that your work can positively impact someone’s life.
What are some of the key accessibility projects in your business?
We have recently started working towards ensuring our products and services are accessible for everyone. I am raising awareness around the topic within the company as I believe the more advocates we have within different teams, the easier it will be to implement RELX's Accessibility Policy.
We have finished setting up specifications for keyboard controls, which all new features must follow. In practice, that means our products will allow keyboard-only user experiences in the future. We are also rethinking our color palettes to cater for the needs of all (prospective) users, including visually impaired and dyslexic.
Min Xiong, Head of Content UX at LexisNexis Legal & Professional
Tell us about yourself
I am Head of Content User Experience at LexisNexis Legal & Professional, based in London and I have worked with the company for five years. My team is based in Salt Lake City, London and Manila. We are globally involved in content design and content accessibility. Together we have worked across hundreds of different content streams and tested accessibility for numerous products. I strongly believe that content should be available to anyone who is interested in consuming it regardless of their physical ability. Personally, I enjoy travelling, exploring new cultures and meeting new people.
What is your role?
My team and I work to ensure all content can benefit from the features or functionalities the product teams develop, and the content is delivered in a way that meets and exceeds customers’ expectations. Apart from creating document view mockups and wireframes, I also lead an accessibility improvement programme with the mandate to gather quality feedback from customers who need accessibility assistance, and then leverage the data to directly impact product quality and engagement.
What are some of the key accessibility projects in your business?
I started the accessibility improvement initiative in January 2018. To date, 11 Agile teams have participated in the programme. The accessibility requirements for each team vary, depending on the age of the product, the technology involved and the number of defects. Regardless, all accessibility testing is based on rigorous standards and accessibility features are implemented using a staged approach. In addition, our visual design team is currently rolling out a Global Visual Style update which replaces old colour palettes with modern styles.
How has your accessibility work impacted our customers?
There are four types of customers we have helped: government agencies and educational institutions; law school students who need accessible e-books; non-sighted lawyers who rely on a screen reader to use our products; and lastly, we look after our colour-blind customers or low vision customers by ensuring our design process adheres to best practice.
Tell us something about accessibility
Accessibility is a subject which covers various types of customers regardless of their physical capabilities. The ability to help customers directly and solve problems for them is the most exciting outcome for our accessibility improvement programme. Our team is oriented deeply around actual customers and the value our products bring to them. They are part of our process and they are the purpose of our work.
rob oTIM, UX Designer I AT RISK AND BUSINESS ANALYTICS
Tell us about yourself
I am a User Experience designer at ICIS, which is the petrochemical and energy business within Risk & Business Analytics. I have been with the business for almost three years now and have worked in several industries such as agriculture and aviation. In my spare time, I love going to design and technology events because it enables me to learn something outside of the day-to-day work and allows me to make new connections.
What is your role?
I am responsible for a few products at ICIS, ranging from recycling and sustainability products to exploring upcoming technologies such as the use of voice and how it could potentially change how we conduct business with our customers.
Tell us something about accessibility
What I have noticed is that when people think about accessibility, they automatically assume that someone is disabled but that is not always the case. What I find cool is that if we design our products and services from the ground up with accessibility in mind, then we inherently improve the usability of them for all of our users. The responsibility that we have really excites me as there is an opportunity to make an impact on someone’s life.
How has your accessibility work impacted our customers?
Most recently, we have made an update to our subscriber platform and made changes to how our customers receive our news offerings. In the newer design, we have made improvements to typography colour and size, as well as ensuring that our colour choices have better contrast sensitivity. Whilst these may seem like minor changes, they have helped to improve readability and the overall user experience. There is still a lot of work for us to do to improve our products and make them more universal and I am excited to be a part of this journey.
What are some of the key accessibility projects in your business?
In line with the RELX accessibility policy, within each of the businesses in Risk & Business Analytics, we are reviewing where our products can and should improve to reduce the likelihood of our customers being excluded from using them. Some of these changes will take longer to implement, but there is a drive to ensure that we are doing our best.
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