Hassell Inclusion
Jonathan Hassell
About
At Hassell Inclusion we're passionate about removing barriers in digital technology, making it accessible to everyone. We work with clients all over the globe to activate and embed digital accessibility into their policies, processes and digital products (such as websites, mobile apps and digital workplace tools), to help them meet their business and inclusion goals.
Insight
Our populations are ageing. We are working longer. And over-70s are the UK’s most online adults after twentysomethings, with considerable spending power. So, it is essential that the digital needs of older people are considered when creating digital products.
These needs are often similar to the needs of many people with disabilities. So, it is puzzling why digital accessibility tends to concentrate on the needs of people with disabilities rather than this include this wider audience.
We need to confront the degree of ageism behind this, as well as the misconception that older people cannot or choose not to participate in the digital world. At present, our research finds that younger creators of technology don’t really know, or want to think about, how they might be affected by ageing until they get there themselves.
The irony is that while digital technologies like Smart Homes can empower and enable us to live more independently later in life, a lack of inclusive design for conditions such as deteriorating eyesight, poor hearing, memory issues and lack of fine motor skills can make using digital technologies more challenging as we age.
As ageing will affect us all to some degree, if companies fail to address the needs of older workers and consumers in their technology choices, it is to the detriment of us all.
Commitment
Changing this is our aim at Hassell Inclusion. We’re committed to:
Enabling organisations which are already focusing on digital accessibility, to understand the value of their existing work to older users, and the importance of promoting that accessibility to them
Enabling organisations which are not yet considering the digital needs and preferences of older and disabled people in their technology creation, to understand the importance of those needs, the benefits that come from meeting them, and how to do that
Impact
Hassell Inclusion has included older people in all our digital inclusion user research, and our understanding of their evolving needs in our accessibility training, for many years.
Going beyond this, we have undertaken a research study of the digital preferences, needs and online activities of over-65s in the UK, and are making the findings freely available in a report and webinar recording to better educate and support employers and retailers.
This recording is part of our accessibility knowledge-base HiHub, which provides free information on accessibility to a large and growing community of people who follow our monthly webinars to improve their accessibility skills and keep their knowledge up to date.
