Web Access Centre Blog

I guess it was bound to happen one day. Today, Julie announced publicly that she will be leaving RNIB in November.

“Where’s she going?!” do I hear you say? She’s off to web design company Fortune Cookie, as Director of Public Relations. Here’s the meat of the press release put out by Fortune Cookie today:

RNIB Accessibility Champion Moves to Fortune Cookie

The Royal National Institute of the Blind’s accessibility champion Julie Howell has announced her move to web design agency Fortune Cookie.

The appointment reflects a major strategic step to place the wider business benefits of accessibility at the heart of Fortune Cookie’s operations.

Howell, who worked for RNIB for 12 years, is best known for raising awareness in the public and private sectors of web accessibility and the rights of disabled customers to use websites. She is Technical Author of the Disability Rights Commission and British Standards Institution’s recently published guidance on commissioning accessible websites (PAS 78).

Speaking about her move, Howell says, “At RNIB I have been able to move accessibility higher up the agenda of many organisations. At Fortune Cookie I will be directly involved in helping businesses and government agencies to make their websites accessible. I will gain an even better understanding of how accessible design can enhance return on investment and attract more customers.

“Fortune Cookie has achieved RNIB’s coveted ‘See it Right’ accessible website status for more of its clients than any other design agency. Together we shall continue to help Fortune Cookie’s clients reach larger proportions of their target audiences through accessible, usable web design.”

Fortune Cookie’s Managing Director, Justin Cooke, says, “This appointment is one of the most exciting we have made in Fortune Cookie’s nine year history. To date we have worked hard to prove that gorgeous-looking, usable, accessible websites deliver a return on investment. Now we must broaden the issue of accessibility so that it appeals and is relevant to the biggest brands in the world. There is no-one in the UK more capable of achieving this than Julie Howell.”

What’s interesting from our perspective in the Web Access team is that we already work a lot with the Fortune Cookie people on various websites they develop and maintain, like the Legal & General website which produced the startlingly good statistics reported by them at the launch of the PAS 78.