Meet the team

Jon Gooday – Accessibility Development Manager

Jon Gooday is a senior consultant for AbilityNet’s web accessibility and usability team. Before joining AbilityNet, Jon was head of the Employers’ Forum on Disability’s web consultancy services. His focus is on providing clear, practical advice that organisations can use to improve the accessibility of their sites for their disabled customers and stakeholders.

Jon has broad experience of working with private, public and voluntary sector clients to enhance their websites’ accessibility and usability.

He has worked with many organisations to write and produce web accessibility guides, including:

• the ‘Sky web accessibility guide - good web design for disabled customers’ (Nov 2003)
• internal accessibility guidelines for companies such as Centrica, Scottish Mutual and Abbey
• ‘Accessible web design - a practical and strategic guide’, the Employers' Forum on Disability’s popular and concise introduction to web accessibility

Other highlights from Jon’s extensive experience include:

• delivering training on both strategic and practical web accessibility issues, including to 300 coders, designers and editors of bbc.co.uk
• creating accessible websites, including  the www.barrierfree-recruitment.com example accessible e-recruitment site developed with Macromedia and the Employers’ Forum on Disability
• many disabled user testing projects, involving moderating testers, analysing data and delivering reports to a range of corporate and public sector clients, including project managing the BBC’s ‘Accessibility help’

Jon’s ongoing projects include working on the PAS 78 advisory panel, delivering accessibility training to MSN, auditing a range of PwC web and software applications, working with BA to improve the accessibility of their software training packages and raising awareness of accessibility through speaking at a wide range of seminars and conferences across the UK.

Kath Moonan – Senior Accessibility and Usability Consultant

Kath Moonan, a senior consultant with our web accessibility and usability team, is a member of the Guild of Accessible Web Designers and a member of the PAS 78 advisory panel. Before joining AbilityNet, Kath was a senior designer and a company director for Poptel Technology, a company she led to become one of the UK’s first agencies to offer accessible web design.

Kath believes firmly in technology being accessible to everyone. She sees improved web accessibility and usability as slowly but surely changing the web for the better.

With an accomplished background as an artist, Kath has taught in universities, arts centres and colleges and her work has been exhibited in the UK and internationally. She helped establish a ground breaking women’s multimedia course at the Manchester Women’s Electronic Village Hall.

Her web design credits include work for Your London, Divine Chocolate, Motability, the GMB, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS), Manchester University and Leeds University Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies. Awards for her work include the NLB ‘Visionary Design Award’ (she won once in 2005, twice in 2004 and once in 2002), and her site for the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU) was shortlisted for an RNIB ‘Simply the Best Award’ in 2004.
Kath has led an innovative web accessibility awareness project for the North West e-Government Partnership (NWeGG). She has spoken at events for the British Computer Society (BCS) and the Usability Professionals Association (UPA).

In her spare time Kath enjoys art, design and geek events. She also likes to work on projects that make rock and roll more accessible to everyone.

Johann de Boer – Accessibility and Usability Consultant

Johann is one of AbilityNet’s newest Usability and Accessibility consultants and comes to us with a strong background of promoting technology accessibility.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Engineering degree, specialising in software, electronic and systems engineering disciplines, he gained experience in a variety of roles with a major Australian bank. There he was most recently responsible for the organisation’s strategy around the inclusion of people with disabilities in the design and procurement of technology used by customers and employees.

Johann has knowledge and experience in a variety of assistive and adaptive technologies, usability and accessibility practices, and knowledge of various types of disabilities. Johann is a strong advocate for the rights of people with disability, driven by his personal experience as someone with low vision who uses Zoomtext screen magnification on a daily basis.

A member of the Usability Professionals Association, Johann is passionate about technology which helps people reach their full potential.

Robin Christopherson – Head of Accessibility Services

After a degree in Engineering at Cambridge and working as an IT instructor for the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB), Robin was a founding member of AbilityNet in 1998. Robin now manages AbilityNet's Web Consultancy services – heading a team that is globally acclaimed as experts in accessibility auditing, disabled user testing and designing attractive websites that are both accessible and easy to use by all.

Despite being blind, Robin uses a computer very effectively by relying on speech output to access the full range of mainstream software including email and the internet. He has a first-hand appreciation of the importance of good web design practice to accessibility.

A member of the Guild of Accessible Web Designers, Robin's current projects include managing AbilityNet’s on-going ‘State of the eNation’ reports and the ‘See it Right: UseAbility’ logo, combining the popular RNIB See it Right (SiR) accreditation with disabled user testing.

Robin also has courtroom experience as an expert technical witness in the area of assistive technology and in software, systems and website accessibility. He also advises companies on their obligations under the DDA, SENDA and DED – including the evaluation of case specific reasonable adjustment.

Joe Chidzik – Accessibility and Usability Consultant

Joe is a  consultant in AbilityNet’s web accessibility and usability team. Previously Joe worked for seven years with the specialist communication software company, Widgit, and for two years in AbilityNet's advice and information team. With a background in user technical support, Joe is keenly aware of the range of difficulties facing both disabled and non-disabled computer users.

Joe is keen for the benefits of computers to be available to all, regardless of ability,  he’s particularly interested in IT’s role in entertainment and leisure and a firm believer in the idea of the internet as a level playing field.

He has advised learndirect centres on the accessibility and usability of their online courses and produced content for the AbilityNet 'My Computer My Way' and bbc.co.uk/accessibility websites. He enjoys learning about new technologies and is a strong advocate of server side scripting and accessible interactive web design.
Joe’s current work includes the Cabinet Office’s EU Benchmarking project, AbilityNet’s quarterly ‘State of the eNation’ reports and Ufi's 'My Guide' project.

Curt Holst – Webmaster/Accessibility and Usability Consultant

Webmaster, Curt, is also an accessibility and usability consultant. Before joining AbilityNet he worked as a web developer/designer in the web application development sector using human-computer interaction (HCI) and accessibility technologies. He has over seven years experience developing  web applications using web, server and database technologies. Curt is passionate about accessible user-interface design and constantly aims to develop his extensive knowledge of website accessibility issues.

Curt’s work at AbilityNet has included:

• delivering training on both strategic and practical web accessibility issues to organisations such as The Co-operative Bank, HSBC and a number of universities, colleges and corporate firms
• developing accessible sites, such as www.abilitynet.org.uk and www.discnwl.org.uk

His current projects include:

• creating bbc.co.uk/accessibility
• creating gateway2at.org, a Europe-wide information gateway for disabled further education  students and lecturers
• designing sites for the voluntary sector