A resident needs to arrange something with her council. English is not her first language and she is helping her mother, who has limited sight.
The relevant page is accurate, thorough and written in the language of the department that owns the service. There is a translation option that renders the same administrative phrasing into another language. The documents are a format her mother's screen reader handles badly.
They telephone. So does everybody else in the same position, and the contact centre absorbs a volume that exists because the written information did not work for the people it was written for.
1. Write in plain language first
Before any translation or alternative format, since translating administrative phrasing produces administrative phrasing in another language.
2. Structure content around what people need to do
Rather than around which department owns it, which is the organising failure behind most public service websites.
3. Provide genuine alternative formats
Easy read, large print, audio and documents that work with assistive technology, rather than a generic statement that they are available on request.
4. Make the request route itself accessible
Asking for an accessible format should not require using the inaccessible route, which is a circular failure that occurs constantly.
5. Provide translation that covers the actual languages used
Based on the population served rather than on a default list, and covering the services those communities most need.
6. Provide interpreting for contact, not only for appointments
Since the first barrier is making contact at all, and interpreting is usually arranged only after somebody has already got through.
7. Offer routes that are not a telephone call
Which excludes people with hearing loss, speech difficulties, anxiety and limited English, all at once.
8. Consider people without devices or data
Digital by default excludes a proportion of exactly the population that needs public services most.
9. Explain what support is available to help somebody apply
Assisted digital, in person support and advocacy, which exist in most areas and are rarely publicised.
10. Design forms that can be paused
Since people with health conditions, caring responsibilities or unstable housing cannot always complete something in one attempt.
11. Address the person acting on somebody's behalf
Relatives, carers and support workers make a large share of contacts and almost nothing is written for them.
12. Test with the people who will use it
Rather than checking against a standard, since compliance and usability are related and not the same thing.
13. Apply it to the routine services too
Bins, tax and permits, which is the volume described in bin permit and service questions on council websites.
14. Publish what has actually been done about it
An accessibility statement that describes intentions is worth less than one that lists what was fixed and what is still wrong. Residents and advocacy groups judge public bodies on candour about the gaps rather than on claims about standards.
15. Answer in plain language, in any language, at any hour
An assistant that responds in ordinary words, in the language somebody uses, without requiring a telephone call, and that can explain a process step by step to a person helping a relative reaches the residents that a thorough and accurate website currently does not. The design principles sit in accessible website assistant, the repeated questions in resident questions councils answer again and again, and a comparable approach in service times and accessibility questions visitors ask. See features, start at try, and the sector view sits under nonprofits.