Our visit to NAIDEX 2024
Written by Demi Daniels, Gabbie Johnson, sadhbh and Sarah Morris
What happens when 2 researchers and 2 content designers from Auto Trader head to an Accessibility Conference in Birmingham? Well to be honest, a whole lot of learning and good conversations.
Back in March we went down to Birmingham for the annual NAIDEX conference. NAIDEX stands for the National Accessibility, Inclusion and Disability Expo. The conference is one of the UK’s most significant events dedicated to disability and independent living. It brings together professionals, experts, and individuals with disabilities to showcase the latest innovations, products, and services aimed at improving accessibility, mobility, and quality of life for people with disabilities.
Our goal for attending the event was to get a better understanding of lived experience, hearing from other companies who are working in the accessibility realm, whether that’s designing the roads or arranging travel.
We wanted to share our experience with our team, so we thought there was no better way than to write up a quick blog about the two-day conference. So, we decided to do a quick recap and asked ourselves…
What stood out to you from the two days?
From Gabbie Johnson, user researcher:
The conference was great and featured exhibitions, seminars, workshops, and networking opportunities covering a wide range of topics related to disability rights, assistive technology, healthcare, and accessibility in various sectors. Two talks at Naidex conference caught my attention, both covering accessible travel, a topic highly relevant to our industry.
Making England’s roads more accessible
The first was presented by Amy Ellis and Julian Horsler from the National Highways, who highlighted that on average, disabled people take 38% fewer journeys than non-disabled individuals. This shed light on the barriers faced by disabled people when planning road travel, such as concerns about fueling or charging their vehicles, the availability of convenient and accessible rest stops, and worries about breakdowns.
Accessible Research
The second talk was by Gordon McCullough, CEO of the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers (RIDC). He discussed the charity’s initiatives, including their diverse community panel of people with disabilities, and shared insights from a project focused on electric vehicles. He emphasised the lack of testing with disabled individuals in the deployment of EV charging stations worldwide. RIDC has developed a blueprint for building accessible charging stations, aiming for widespread adoption by companies to enhance accessibility for all travellers.
Both talks resonated deeply with me. At Auto Trader, we prioritise digital accessibility to ensure a smoother car buying journey for all users. However, the insights from Naidex conference highlight the importance of extending our focus beyond the purchase stage to address the accessibility challenges faced by car owners. There’s evidently more work to be done in ensuring that the entire ownership experience, including refueling, charging, and breakdown assistance, is equally accessible to everyone.
From Sadhbh Parle, content designer:
I want to highlight the time my colleagues and I spent at the Business without Barriers stage. Business without Barriers is a Naidex initiative that helps companies create more accessible and inclusive workplaces for people with disabilities. With this in mind, the talks held in this area were geared specifically towards businesses, and armed us with plenty of knowledge to take back to our roles at Auto Trader. There were discussions about everything from creating an inclusive recruitment process to digital accessibility, and we managed to catch a few of the talks in this area. There were two, however, that particularly stood out to me.
Demystifying the EU Accessibility Act
The first was a panel discussion called Demystifying the EU Accessibility Act, which aimed to do- well, exactly that! The talk unpacked the new piece of legislation that states that any company supplying digital content into the EU, including companies from the UK, will have to make their products accessible by June 2025. It’s a big win for those of us that have been championing accessibility in this space!
The talk was chaired by Alice Hargreaves, the CEO of SIC, which is a social enterprise dedicated to creating accessible workplaces. The panelists included neurodiversity and innovation consultant Matthew Bellringer, the founder and CEO of Tigim and Leaders for Accessibility, Niamh Kelly, and Robin Christopherson MBE, Head of Digital Inclusion at AbilityNet. Oh, and of course, Robin’s gorgeous guide dog and star of the show, Hugo!
The panel recommended that businesses first focus on universal design; by making all digital products accessible, you make them better and easier to use not only for people with disabilities, but for everyone. This is an ethos that we certainly adhere to at Auto Trader, so it was encouraging to hear it echoed by the brilliant panelists! They also discussed using maturity models to measure website accessibility, something that I’m inspired to bring back to my team as a potential way of monitoring our progress. We’re not perfect, so it’s always good to keep a note of where we can improve.
Skyscanner- Our Digital Accessibility Journey
Speaking of imperfection, I also want to shine a light on the talk from Heather Hepburn, Head of Accessibility at Skyscanner. Not because her talk wasn’t perfect (it was pretty darn close!) but because Heather was so open and candid about Skyscanner’s journey with digital accessibility. She called attention to their many successes, but wasn’t afraid to highlight the areas where improvement is still needed. This again made me think about how important it is to be aware of where we’re excelling, and where we’re still growing.
Heather also gave brilliant advice for creating accessible websites across five key areas: design, content, keyboard only, screen readers and magnification. She sang the praises of her Champions Network, who advocate for accessibility across Skyscanner. This was a brilliant reminder that the responsibility never falls to just one person; it’s up to all of us to advocate for creating inclusive and accessible digital products.
From Sarah Morris, senior user researcher:
Sometimes, as user researchers, we can focus too much on the overall themes across feedback, forgetting to consider everyone’s unique stories and lived experiences. This year, Naidex gave a platform for disabled speakers to talk about theirs.
In conversation with Tasha Ghouri
We kicked off our Naidex experience with a session featuring the lovely Tasha Ghouri, an activist, model and social media influencer. Tasha is deaf and talked about what it is like to navigate the world as a deaf woman. She talked in detail about some of the obstacles she has faced throughout school and work. She also discussed some of the work she has been doing recently, including campaigning on social media and television to normalise deaf accents. Tasha was the first deaf contestant on Love Island. During the conversation, she talked about what this was like and how she overcame barriers to be part of the show. She highlighted the importance of resting between filming and socialising, when other members of the cast got ready. I think this is something that is quite relatable for lots of disabled people — finding those small gaps to reset and process our experiences in a world not particularly accessible to us. You can follow the great work that Tasha does to campaign for change on Instagram: @tashaghouri.
Panel Discussion: Navigating our mental health journeys
I attended a panel discussion which explored the nuances of mental health hand-in-hand with disability. The panel was made up of a range of individuals who all had shared experiences but with a different story to tell.There was a powerful discussion around the impact of life-changing news on diagnoses from doctors. Celia Chartres-Aris, Co-Founding Director of Access2Funding, talked about how it feels to be left to struggle after a life-limiting diagnosis. She discussed how valuable it would be for the health service to offer those diagnosed with such conditions to receive support from the very start, rather than being left to develop mental health challenges before receiving support. Celia also talked about losing the ability to eat and how that impacted her social life and mental wellbeing. She talked about how her friends now prioritise activities that don’t revolve around foods and how she has found crafting and a way to keep busy.
My main take away from lived experience talks is that it’s incredibly important to hear each individual’s experience. This includes giving voices to those in the disabled and neurodiverse community during user research, and making sure our research is accessible for everyone to participate in and share their thoughts.
From Demi Daniels, senior content designer:
Overall, I thought NAIDEX was a brilliant learning opportunity. It was great to have two full days to think about accessibility, both in the workplace and world around me. It also opened time to have chats with my colleagues about what we think we’re doing well and what goals we can set for the future. All of the talks I went to were really thought-provoking and further instilled the belief that I need to continue to learn and advocate.
The People First Podcast — a LIVE podcast presented and run by adults with learning disabilities
I started my second day at a recording of ‘The People First Podcast’, which is a podcast run by people with learning disabilities. Their platform is intended to discuss the things that really matter to them, discussing different issues that affect people with learning disabilities in their community and all over the world.
The talk was held in the ‘Accessibility Hub’ of NAIDEX, which was a smaller stage that provided headphones to attendees to block out the background noise, which was a great consideration the organisers made to make the event more accessible.
The hosts, Shannon Jackson and Luke Demaine did a great job at interviewing Brooke Millhouse, where the three talked about their lived experience. It was a great learning opportunity to hear about different challenges they face, and how they overcome them. Such positive and inspiring people! You can learn more about the the charity on the People First website.
Let’s talk about accessibility
Another talk that sticks out in my mind is the HSBC ‘Let’s talk about Accessibility’ talk with Chris Bailey and Jared Clayton. They outlined HSBC’s commitment to digital accessibility and talked a lot about how they’re working to make HSBC accessible for not only their customers, but also their colleagues.
This really resonated, as I’m a facilitator to our Accessibility Working Group at Auto Trader, as well as working on a project that is aimed at making the colleague experience better, so lots of notes were taken. They spoke in depth about the accessibility training that they offer to colleagues, which is something I’m highly involved in at Auto Trader.
What specifically stood out was the seemingly little changes they were doing to make things more accessible, and their commitment. For example, they make sure that any third party that they work with knows their commitment to accessibility and keeps track of their goals.
The HSBC Accessibility Team is also working towards an initiative called ‘Train 1000’, aimed at offering their expertise and training 1000 people outside of HSBC, which speaks volumes to me about their commitment.
In conclusion…
We’ve all learned a lot from attending, and there are many key insights we’ve been able to take back to our project teams and working groups. Would we attend next year? While the talks were great, the venue itself wasn’t set out in the most inclusive way. The conference was held in a large room with talks happening in various corners of an open space. The content was fantastic but hard to follow at times due to the openness of the venue. For anyone looking at assistive tech and accessible products, we’d highly recommend this conference. However, we suggest that future events consider a more inclusive and structured layout to enhance the overall experience.
