Habinteg Housing Association help users read and translate content with ReachDeck
Woven recently added the ReachDeck Digital Inclusion Toolbar to their new website. Helping every user to read and translate their online content with ease.
Woven is a registered housing association in the United Kingdom. Woven plans, develops and manages ‘integrated’ housing schemes across Northern Ireland. The Association has over 2,500 properties at more than 100 locations.
Outcomes
- Woven's online visitors use the ReachDeck Toolbar over 60 times weekly!
- Most popular tools: speech, translation, plus simplification, screen mask and magnification.
- Language translations feature Czech, German, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, and Spanish.
The background
The team at Woven is committed to meeting the needs of all its users. This includes older people and people with disabilities.
Woven represents not only the organization’s name, but also what they do. Woven develops housing and brings people together to create thriving neighborhoods, weaving together homes, lives, and communities to help create a shared vision of an inclusive Northern Ireland.
The Association’s Vision - Homes, Lives and Communities; Woven as one encapsulates this central aim.
The challenge
The team recognised that only 1 in 10 people in need can afford their own assistive technology. So, the Association added the ReachDeck Toolbar to its website as an extra support for its users with disabilities, older tenants and for people who speak English as a second language.
Greg Statham, Communications Officer remarks:
“Online access to main services is essential for us. It is important for us to make sure that all users have access to information, without barriers or hindrance.”
Success
Greg has been impressed with the number of users availing of the Toolbar’s support features. He continues:
We are delighted by the data we’re getting from Texthelp, which helps us to gauge how much the toolbar is being used. The ReachDeck Toolbar is used, on average, more than 60 times each week. 90% of users access the website and use the accessibility tool via mobile phone.”
Woven is keen to push that number even higher. They're working hard to let users know that support is available on every page of the website. Sharing images and instructions on social media and by email, users are signposted to the Toolbar regularly.
“We promote and share ReachDeck information on our internal Workplace platform for staff members and celebrate the success of the feature,” Greg adds.
Lasting value
Woven communicates with a diverse audience, which includes older users and many non-native English speakers. Therefore the Association was delighted to find that features such as text magnification and translation were being used regularly.
Greg says:
“In the first six months since launching our new website, the ReachDeck Toolbar was accessed over 1,500 times, averaging more than 250 times per month.
“Most users engaged with the Toolbar for speech and translation, followed by features for simplifying on-screen information, screen masking, and and magnification.
"The Toolbar sees the highest usage in Belfast, Derry/Londonderry, and Dungannon.
“We've actively promoted the ReachDeck Toolbar through our new website, social media, and by including access tools in our Tenant Welcome Handbook.
“We highly recommend the ReachDeck Toolbar and have shared its valuable accessibility features with colleagues across Northern Ireland, highlighting its benefits in national standards assessements.”
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