Products and services

Our specialist team takes your original customer documents and transforms it into accessible information. This can be a bank statement, utility bill, brochure, menu, visitor information, magazine and much more…

We securely manage and deliver all accessible information to the required quality and security standards. This includes PCI DSS, Cyber Essentials Plus, ISO 9001 (QMS), ISO 27001 (ISMS) and ISO 22301 (BCMS) certified.

Large print - If a customer has some vision but struggles to read regular-sized print, then large print may help. Our standard is 20 font Arial but we can produce up to 32 font and on different coloured paper if required.

Easy Read - Primarily aimed at people with learning difficulties, RNIB Easy Read is a combination of Easy Words and Pictures. It’s a powerful way of putting across information to people who finds reading and writing difficult, or where English isn’t the first language. RNIB have expanded the reach of Easy Read to include people who suffer from sight loss.

Braille – is a system of raised dots for people who are blind or low vision and read by touch. We support both contracted and uncontracted Unified English Braille.

Audio - Provide your communications in audio, either in synthetic or real voice, using professional narrators. Choose from CD, DAISY and MP3 formats.

RNIB can help you understand the needs of people with disabilities and how to ensure that your technology is inclusive. We provide expert accessibility and usability assessments to identify the barriers that prevent people with disabilities from using your website or app. We work with you to embed inclusion into your business.

Websites

From wireframe to re-build, we can help you at every stage to ensure your website is accessible.

Our team can:

• review your website designs or wireframes to highlight potential accessibility issues and advise you on how these might be avoided
• audit your website for compliance against WCAG 2.1 AA (or AAA) standard and provide recommendations to resolve any accessibility-related issues
• carry out usability assessments using assistive technology to identify usability issues
• carry out observed user testing to ensure your website works for people with disabilities (testing can be on both desktop and mobile platforms).

Website and App Accessibility assessments

If you are still at design stage, our consultants can carry out a review of your website designs or wireframes to check for potential accessibility issues. This can then be used as a checklist during your web build, ensuring that accessibility issues have been considered at the start, saving you valuable time, money and resources.

We audit against the industry standard WCAG 2.1 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines on desktop and mobile. Generally we audit to A and AA standard but can also audit to AAA if required.

Our consultants use a range of automatic tools and manual assessment (including use with assistive technology) to produce a technical report on your website. Issues found are noted against the relevant WCAG 2.1 checkpoints and detailed recommendations are provided on how to resolve them. Technical coding advice and links to resources are provided where relevant. Check out a sample WCAG audit report.

Usability assessments

Whilst accessibility is vital, it is a first step and usability is equally important. A website can be accessible but difficult to use especially with a screen reader where the visual clues provided by the website design can be lost.

Your site is tested using assistive technology and visual settings (such as high contrast scheme) on desktop and mobile for common usability issues. We follow user journeys to ensure that the flow through the pages is clear and that tasks can be completed. The assessment will highlight potential usability issues together with recommendations to further improve your site. Here is an example of one of our usability assessment reports.

A usability assessment is a valuable addition to a website audit and in itself will improve the website. It will also help prepare your site for user testing. It is

less productive to test with end users unless the site is working as you expect it to be with obvious usability issues identified and checked. Here is a sample of issues that can be highlighted in a Website usability report.

Apps

We can help you from design stage to testing existing apps.

Our team can:

• review your designs or wireframes to highlight potential accessibility issues and advise you on how these might be avoided
• assess your app for accessibility and usability against our internal app guidelines and provide recommendations to resolve accessibility or usability issues
• carry out observed user testing to ensure your app works for people with disabilities

App assessment

Our app assessments are carried out using the in-built accessibility features on the phones or tablets including:

• VoiceOver on iOS
• Zoom and other visual settings on iOS
• TalkBack and magnification on Android
• Magnification and other visual settings on Android.
• Switch Access (Android) and Switch Control (iOS)
• Voice Access (Android) and Voice Input (iOS)

The assessments are based on user journeys and cover both accessibility and usability of the app.

We will provide you with a report, highlighting the issues found, with recommendations for improvement.

Observed user testing Test your website or app with end users through RNIB’s observed user testing service, which involves blind and partially sighted people or people with other disabilities, as required.

We have a panel of users around the country who take part in our testing. This ensures we have a range of people taking part in the testing to cover typical end users. During user testing, participants are asked to complete a series of tasks built around the core functionality of the website and are observed

during the process. We provide a report detailing the outcome of the testing, highlighting issues that need to be addressed with recommendations for improvement.

RNIB has a series of training options.

• Digital inclusion covering web and app accessibility and usability, how to use assistive technology to help you test your own website or app and how to use automatic checking tools
• Product design helping you design your products so they will be more usable to people with sight loss
• Our Learning choices team provides a suite of training services to provide practical help to people with sight loss in a range of areas
• Our Understanding Sight Loss course will help your staff understand the needs of people with disabilities improving your customer service whether it’s face to face, via Microsoft Teams or website chat.

Digital Inclusion

We run a number of courses for designers and developers working on apps, websites or products. These will help you to understand how people with sight loss access websites and apps, some of the common usability issues that arise and how to avoid them. We also run technical courses to help you with accessible coding on websites. The courses are:

Accessibility and Usability courses:

• Accessibility and Usability for websites on desktop and mobile
• Accessibility and Usability of apps
• Accessible and usable visual design

Technical web development:

• Introduction to Digital Accessibility
• Website Accessibility for developers (Basic)
• Website Accessibility for developers (Advanced)
• Web Accessibility for Designers
• Web Accessibility for Content Authors

Our courses can be delivered face-to-face or online as required.

Product training

Our product training will help you to understand why common accessibility and usability problems arise for disabled people when using your products. The course covers visual, audio and tactile interaction and has practical sessions using simulation devices which can incorporate using your products.

Due to the practical session, this course is best delivered in person but where that is not possible, we can offer a cut-down version suitable for on-line delivery.

Learning choices

If you are looking for flexible, accessible e-learning RNIB Learning Choices can help.

We offer a range of e-learning courses and our current library of courses includes:

• How to Guide People with Sight Loss
• Communication matters
• Supporting Independence
• Learning Disability and Sight Loss
• Dementia and Sight Loss
• Feelings, attitudes, and Emotions
• Understanding sight loss for Employment Professionals
• Supporting People with Disabilities (standard build)

Understanding Sight Loss

Our Understanding Sight Loss course will help you understand the issues your customers might face when using your services. It incorporates practical sessions using simulation technology and will help improve your customer services.

RNIB provide an accreditation service for products, websites and apps. Our Tried and Tested logo lets your customers know that you have undertaken a rigorous assessment which ensures that your product, website or app is both accessible and usable. The process is:

• An accessibility and usability assessment which may contain recommendations that must be implemented
• Recheck to review changes
• Observed user testing with blind and partially sighted people – again this may result in recommendations for improvement
• Recheck to assess changes made

The observed user testing is carried out with people from our panel around the country and will include a wide range of people to ensure that your service is thoroughly tested by typical end users.

Whether it’s TVs or showers, we can check the accessibility and usability of your product and help you improve it.

It’s important to test all products. Just because something seems simple, it doesn’t mean it is! Our consultants carry out product assessments against our internal inclusive product design guidelines. We can then follow this up with observed user testing with blind and partially sighted people.

We can help at all stages of a project including:

• User research to help define priorities or user needs.
• Product design workshops to help you understand the impact of sight loss and how it affects the use of your product.
• Expert assessment at all stages of development to help identify barriers to use and solutions to resolve issues.
• Observed user testing to observe how typical blind and partially sighted people will use your product and identify areas where usability can be improved.

Product assessments

We can provide product assessments of your existing products or those in development. Products are assessed against RNIB’s internal guidelines for inclusive design. Our guidelines are based on good design principles and our extensive experience of carrying out observed user testing over many years. We will provide you with a detailed report highlighting usability or accessibility issues, the impact on the user and recommendations for improvement.

We have a summary outline of our product design guidelines and other useful information about inclusive design.

Observed user testing Test your product’s accessibility through RNIB’s observed user testing service, which involves blind and partially sighted people.

We have a panel of users around the country who take part in our testing. This ensures we have a range of people taking part in the testing to cover typical end users. During user testing, participants are asked to complete a series of tasks built around the core functionality of the product and are observed during the process. We provide a report detailing the outcome of the testing, highlighting issues that need to be addressed with recommendations for improvement.

Accessible images, maps and touch installations enhance the experiences blind and partially sighted people have, making their visit more engaging, informative and allow for greater independence and inclusion. For many years, RNIB has been the UK’s market leader in the design and production of these services, which we tailor to meet the requirements of individual clients.

Our dedicated in-house team of experienced designers are braille trained and offer full description writing and production service. As a result, we’re ideally placed to help you meet the needs of your blind and partially sighted customers.

To discover more about how we can help make your company more accessible, take a look at our full guide to tactile images and maps.

Our RNIB Map for All is a great way to make sure all of your customers feel comfortable and confident while visiting your premises.