Accessibility should be a year-round consideration, not just on December 3rd: International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Skillcast is committed to creating accessible learning all 365 days.
Barclays is another example of that: proud of its mission to become the most inclusive FTSE company for all clients, customers and colleagues. From ensuring branches have level access, equipping ATMs with audio functionality, and designing easier to easier-to-read debit cards, the bank takes its responsibility to provide accessible services very seriously.
Key takeaways
- Accessibility is at the heart of Barclays; their Digital Accessibility Team focuses on the online aspect, while other important areas are telephone banking, branches and workplace adjustments for employees.
- Compliance training is something Barclays takes very seriously.
- Barclays has gone from high-level accessibility requirements to introducing clear guidance.
- Small ways to make e-learning content more inclusive include textual descriptions and ensuring keyboard accessibility.
- Barclays worked with Skillcast to co-create accessible e-learning content.
- The bank’s employees responded well to Skillcast’s redesigned e-learning content.
- Barclays reviews and monitors the accessibility of its e-learning content, gathering feedback from colleagues and employees with disabilities.
- Their ambition is to create even more engaging and innovative training material, keeping accessibility at the centre.
At Skillcast, we’ve learned a lot from working with Barclays. It has opened our eyes to how we can do more to create innovative and engaging e-learning content that is accessible for all.
We sat down with the accessibility team at Barclays to discuss the company's passion for digital accessibility and their mission to create e-learning resources that align with their accessibility goals.
1. What are Barclays' accessibility priorities?
Accessibility is particularly important here at Barclays, because one of our ambitions is to become the most accessible and inclusive company. It needs to be at the heart of everything we do, including the products and services we build and offer to our clients, our customers, and our colleagues too.
Our Digital Accessibility Team focus on the online aspect. But other areas make sure customers with accessibility needs can access the services they want via telephone banking and in our branches, and provide workplace adjustments for our colleagues. It really impacts the way we work and everything we do.
2. How important is staff training for compliance at Barclays?
Being a bank, compliance training is something we take very, very seriously. We have many mandatory training courses rolling out every quarter, which all, or many, of our colleagues need to complete.
It is particularly important that all employees fully understand and process the information in these training modules because it impacts the way they act and carry out their work.
3. Describe your journey to making compliance e-learning more accessible and inclusive
Our original accessibility requirements were around learning were quite high-level. Internal teams and suppliers found it hard to fully understand what they were and how to comply with them.
Often, when training is not accessible, it is not because the person designing it didn’t want that, but because they weren't aware of what they needed to do. With this in mind, we introduced clear guidance that outlined requirements, alongside examples, making it easier for suppliers and internal teams to comply.
4. Tell us some examples of small ways that you can make e-learning content more accessible
People often think everybody will go through the e-learning module with a mouse, but that’s not the reality. There are colleagues who, for different reasons, cannot use a mouse. Therefore, it’s really important to ensure that everything is keyboard accessible.
Some developers and content authors may not be aware that for images, you need to provide a textual description for users who cannot see them. But unless you teach people what that should include, very often you end up with something that isn’t particularly useful - for example, it may focus on the actual content of the image instead of the information it’s trying to communicate.
Hopefully, this demonstrates the importance of being specific in terms of accessibility requirements.
5. Tell us about the team's experience of working with Skillcast to create more accessible e-learning content
After creating the guidance detailing the specifics to consider when designing training, it was shared with all our e-learning suppliers, including Skillcast. This was used as a discussion starter with each company to understand how it could be implemented.
From there, it was an interactive and collaborative process where we reviewed the implementation progress together. It took about a year to reach the stage where we were totally happy with what we had co-created.
Some of the changes made included making sure modules could be completed using only the keyboard and making sure all buttons and controls were properly labelled so that people using a screen reader could get the correct information for each component and each button.
It was also important to make sure that for people using a screen reader, feedback on whether the answer they selected is correct or incorrect is read out automatically. This involved making changes to ensure relevant information is sent instantly to the screen reader.
6. How have Barclays employees responded to Skillcast's redesigned e-learning content?
After launching the first couple of modules, we gathered feedback from people who are part of our network of colleagues with a disability. It was largely positive, especially for those who were used to just being sent a PDF!
7. How will you continue to review the accessibility of your e-learning content?
First of all, we need to keep monitoring the modules we receive, not only from suppliers but also from internal teams. Asking our colleagues for feedback is also very important. Our network of employees with a disability is happy to be involved in giving feedback, and they’re really honest about it. They let us know if the modules can be made even easier for them to use in any way. We will definitely try to incorporate more changes moving forward.
8. What are your ambitions for the future in terms of accessible and inclusive e-learning?
Once we reach the stage where suppliers are fully aware of our accessibility requirements, the next step is to create even more engaging and innovative training material, while keeping accessibility at the heart of it.
Suppliers are trying to make e-learning more enjoyable for everyone, and we think that’s great. Accessibility and innovation go hand-in-hand.
Even though some companies may not include accessibility in their requirements when they use suppliers for learning materials, we think more will in the future. Suppliers who do the hard work now to incorporate accessibility will be ahead of the game.
Accessibility and e-learning: FAQs
What accessibility standards apply to e-learning?
WCAG 2.2 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), Section 508 (US), EN 301 549 (EU standard) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Can you make an existing course accessible?
Yes, but retrofitting takes time, requiring focus on adding alt text and captions, making navigation consistent and keyboard-friendly and improving colour contrast. It may be easier to start from scratch.
Who is responsible for ensuring e-learning accessibility?
It’s usually shared between course creators/instructional designers (content accessibility), platform or IT staff (technical) and institutional leadership (policies and compliance).
Want to learn more about Equality & Compliance?
Our Essentials Library contains e-learning content designed to help organisations meet fundamental compliance requirements. If you are looking for focused training, our DEI training package - Diversity & Equality Training Package offers a complete solution for your compliance programme. Courses in the libraries include:
- Equality and Diversity in the Workplace Training Course
- Equality and Diversity for Managers Training Course
- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Training Course
- Unconscious Bias Training Course
We've created a comprehensive Risk Management compliance roadmap to help you navigate the compliance landscape. If you would like to access leading insights and compliance tips, you can browse our free resources by topic to find guides, modules, compliance bites and more.
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Written by: Simon Truckle
As Director of Learning Solutions at Skillcast, I am responsible for ensuring that our partners achieve the best return on their e-learning investment. I help our clients navigate every stage of the learning development process, from risk assessment through to audit, while personalising the approach to the needs of their organisation. Before Skillcast I was Head of eLearning at both Barclays Wealth and Gerard Asset Management, responsible for delivering hundreds of courses to thousands of employees.
