How to close the digital divide: TechShare Pro 2020
Submitted by Sarah Botterill on Sun, 03/01/2021 - 12:31
Covid-19 has shone a spotlight on the digital divide. We need a blueprint for change says Helen Milner, OBE, and Group Chief Executive of Good Things Foundation.
Helen spoke to AbilityNet's Head of Marketing and Communications during TechShare Pro 2020. We review their conversation in this Q&A.
Mark Walker, AbilityNet: Could you tell me a little bit about yourself, and Good Things Foundation?
Helen Milner: I'm the Group Chief Executive of Good Things Foundation. I've been working in Digital inclusion and in online education since the mid-eighties.
We are a digital and social inclusion charity based in Sheffield . All of our work is about how we support people who are on the wrong side of the digital divide; who can't use the internet or have never used the internet or are using it, but in a limited way.
It's about helping people to learn how to use the internet in a supported way in order to help them, for example, to get work, to feel less isolated, keep in touch with friends and family to access health services to be able to get up-to-date information.
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MW: So, how does it work?
HM: We work through a network of thousands of community organisations. We call these hyper-local community organisations and they're all over the UK. And they support people locally to learn how to use internet.
MW: Some of the texture in terms of the centres....
You're very much woven into the fabric of the community. My favourite one has always been that the fish and chip shop in Stockport that won the [AbilityNet] Tech4Good Award 10 years ago, but so many different examples where you're enabling people to get support.
HM: I call it a big club with the shared vision… we're all independent, but we have the same belief that there are more than 9 million people in our society who need support and help to be able to use the internet and to benefit from everything that brings.
So, you've mentioned, the fish and chip shop in Stockport but there's lots of community centres and those community centres might, for example, run a community cafe, they might do after school clubs for children, they might do recycling programmes or food poverty programmes.
Or there are other for example small local charities that might support older people or people with disabilities.
Anybody who wants to be part of this club is free to be part of it. Anybody who cares about digital inclusion can be part of that big club and can work with us in that coordinated way to try and tackle this and to close that digital divide.
MW: There's clearly a connection to social inclusion. How much of the digital divide do you think is technology, and how much of it is linked to other factors?
HM: I would say it's all linked, but there's a massive overlap between digital and social exclusion.
The two main factors are age and income. If somebody is older and has a low income, they're likely to be digitally excluded; either, they've never used it, they don't have access or they have very limited skills. What we mean by that is they use the internet very rarely, or they use it for a very small number of things, for example, less than five apps or websites.
You've then also obviously got other factors such as educational attainment and disability.
Disability is another one of those factors that means that people are much more likely to be offline. There's also a big overlap between people who, for example, don't have work or have low incomes and also, and age and people with disabilities as well.
MW: Where does disability pop-up within the broad framework of what you're doing?
HM: I like to think of it as a layered approach. The big club with the shared vision, so we call it the online centres network.
So that is clearly something that specifically targets people with disabilities in the communities that they're in and with, you know, the many disability charities that are in the online centres network. T
here are some that absolutely specialize, but everything that we do is we make it as inclusive as possible. We have an online learning platform called Learn My Way. And it's been set up with a very low levels of literacy. So, people with a reading age of nine can access it, but we also have text to speech so it's all read out as well.
So if people can't read it or can't see it, they'll then be able to access it as well.
Then within the community centres, there are staff and are volunteers. AbilityNet has helped us to train some of those. We're helping about a quarter of a million people a year.
It could be as simple about helping people to set up the existing accessibility tools that people have on their devices; on their smartphone or on their laptop or their tablet, they will already have accessibility and support built in. So, helping people to use that. And it's really important that we're training the staff and the volunteers to make sure that they can, they can help people in that way.
MW: And, and your blueprint looking ahead that was published in September, I think?
HM: Yes, September.
MW: Can you tell us what's, what's the motivation behind that?
HM: The blueprint is very much focused on policy makers, politicians, and other stakeholders. We’re calling for three things. The first is a great digital catch-up on a mass scale. We're calling to halve the digital divide; 9 million people in the UK can't use the internet without help.
And so to have a program that tackles 4.5 million of them and actually we've costed that and we can do that, that just 2% of the investment that's going into broadband infrastructure.
So that's really important and what we would love to have a specific great digital catch-up for people with disabilities to make sure that we're bringing in partners like AbilityNet and, and also looking at devices potentially with slightly more hardware and software for the people with disabilities.
The second one is a data poverty lab because one of the things we found within Covid is that there are a lot of people who just can't afford the internet.
So, we can help them with devices. We can help them with, with mobile data, you know, six months, 12 months, but that's going to run out. We've supported over 10,000 people during the pandemic with new tablets, with new mobile data but when that runs out, we really need a cross sector program.
I think we should set ourselves a target of two years to close that data poverty gap to make sure that people who can't afford it can get it for free or very, very, very low costs and clearly government the, the technology and telecom sector and charities need to work together on that.
And the third one is a digital strategy that really works for everybody. Government can't digitize government services without bringing people with them.
So, if there are still millions and millions of people over 5 million disabled people who have never used internet or who are limited users, then that's not okay. We need to make sure that the digital strategy talks to this as an issue, not just about the possibilities of the tech sector.
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Submitted by Sarah Botterill on Wed, 16/12/2020 - 19:12
What do the BBC, accessibility and the Tardis have in common?
Fifteen years ago, the three combined to help jumpstart the BBC’s accessibility journey as accessibility lead Gareth Ford Williams explains.
“I was told to go in and meet Robin Christopherson [AbilityNet’s head of Digital Inclusion]. We did a workshop session on accessibility in 2005 with Robin.
"Robin's a bit of a Sci-Fi nerd and we went off and found a Tardis at television centre.”
Fast-forward to today and Ford Williams continues to champion accessibility across the BBC. Here are his top tips for embedding accessibility across an organisation?
1. Involve users in the design process
Do we still need to keep telling user stories? Absolutely, says Ford Williams.
“In the 1960s and 1970s, there weren't disabled kids in mainstream schools. We just started having VI [Visually Impaired] kids just as I was coming towards the end of school in the late 1980s.
“We have a different way of interfacing with the world and we have different needs and different requirements. The BBC is trying to get to 12% members of staff with disabilities at the minute. It's really important we all understand each.
Championing your cause is vital, Ford Williams says, “One of the first things I did is get permission to send out a division-wide email and just say, ‘I'm going to be in, in the boardroom this one lunchtime with a load of sandwiches and tea, and with no friends. I'd love to have a chat.’”
“And it was packed. We couldn't fit everyone in the room, and it wasn't just the sandwiches, because BBC sandwiches aren't that great.
“Somewhere around about 2011, 2012, we were chatting with someone who, who just said, you know, there's champions networks in places like Yahoo but there was no such thing as an accessibility champions network, and we kind of formalized it.”
“I went to people and said I need to understand how you do your job. And I need to make sure that this works for you. I'm not going to tell you how to do your job. I'm not going to slap a load of guidelines in front of you, and put 'thou shalt not', in cross stitch over the bed. It's none of that. It was just as an accessibility manager, I had to understand how to integrate.”
4. Tackling one problem at a time
“It's building that case and building something that is, is easy, understandable, and scalable and sustainable because you don't want to end up in an auditing sausage machine.
The first thing we did was create subgroups to tackle each of the different questions that we were. We looked at the semantic structure, and we all decided how many heading level ones we were going to have because we couldn't find any pages that were marked up the same. Ee just tackled one problem.
“The business treats headings exactly the same everywhere now and no one really knows why. And that's because we sorted it out 15 years ago.”
5. Take accessibility to the top
“You have to listen. You have to be a good listener to be an accessibility person and yes, seek forgiveness, not approval.
“Just go and knock on the CEO's door and have a chat. Find out when they get in the lift, pop in with them and have a natter, you know, do that be cheeky. No, one's going to have a go at you for talking about something that's very important, very ethical.”
Tony Aggy [former BBC controller] said to me, we've got this project, a prototype called BBC Imp [now iPlayer].
“He said write a bunch of requirements and I'll mandate them. We're just going to experiment. Let's find out how it works, test it, make sure it works and then spread it and then we've got a place where we can say, look, it's working over here.
“So, we built it and it. There's no accessibility lead in iPlayer, but it just became part of the thing. That's what iPlayer is, as accessible as it possibly can be.”
Unblocking the power of Android: Google's Action Blocks
Submitted by Adam Tweed on Wed, 16/12/2020 - 16:20
Help relatives and friends unlock the power of their Android phones using Google's Action Blocks.
Action Blocks is an App from the Google Play Store that allows you to set them up for a specific function or task that is accessible from the home screen and actioned with a single tap.
It also offers a way to interact with the in-built voice assistant but without the need to remember commands or gestures or the need to be understood by speech recognition.
Google's Action Blocks are useful for people with dexterity impairments because you can resize individual buttons from a tile that takes up the same amount of screen space as four icons (about a quarter of the screen on a smartphone) to something that can cover the majority of the screen itself.
This presents a much larger target than the default icons and is far less likely to be accidentally dragged off the screen and lost.
Why should I use Action Blocks?
Buttons and tiles are customisable, so you can include a picture that illustrates the action. There are a number of possible applications, for example, you could set a picture of a glowing lightbulb on one button to turn the lights on and a picture of a dark bulb on another to turn them off (your lights will need to be smart lights, to do this).
You can also do things like use a photograph of a person on a button that will dial that person's number.
Or how about a picture of a radio on the button that opens up the BBC sound app and the stream of a person's favourite radio station?
Tapping a picture of a recognisable item makes a link with a service despite the change in how the person accesses the service.
How do I set up Action Blocks?
Setting up an action requires that you are reasonably comfortable with using a smartphone or tablet and most use cases assume that you will therefore be a person setting up the Action Blocks on behalf of someone who is struggling.
When you first set up an Action Block, you are given a series of suggested actions, common tasks you might want to do with your phone; send a message, make a call, play music, set an alarm or a reminder, or get directions. You can also control connected lights or heating.
The selection the app suggests are common actions, but you can create an Action Block to carry out any action on your smartphone or tablet that you could trigger with a voice command. It's best to stick with simple commands like "turn on the hall light" as more complicated sequences tend to be a bit more hit-and-miss, but you can experiment with what works.
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Setting up the action itself can be done by voice or typed and you can then test out the action to check it works before moving to the next stage.
When you test the action, your command will be read out in a fairly fast, robotic voice as it is this that triggers the action using the voice-based Google Assistant, but you can switch this off as soon as you’re happy the command is doing what you want it to.
You can then select a picture for the button. This is particularly useful for people who may struggle to remember symbols or associate concepts; a picture of someone that will trigger the action to call that person is a simpler concept than learning how to search and navigate a contacts list. It also requires far less dexterity than attempting to dial a number using an on-screen number pad.
It's also a simple reassurance should a person find themselves in a stressful or distressing situation, that they can go to this simple action, or hand their phone to someone else who will be able to see this action clearly.
Get Action Blocks to Read Aloud
As well as the use cases above, Action Blocks can turn your smartphone or tablet into a simple AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) device where buttons can be assigned words or phrases that can be read out-loud when pressed. You have a choice of a male or female-sounding voice, but both have American accents. The list of default phrases is:
“Hello, my name is...” (which can be edited to include a name)
“Excuse me, I have something to say”
“Please help me”
“Yes”
“No”
You can also create a ‘custom phrase’, to say anything you would like and the phrase can then be assigned a picture and a name. This is useful for anyone non-verbal or for anyone who may struggle to articulate themselves. For example, you could set up a phrase to ask for a return bus ticket to the town centre or set up a button to explain your condition or barrier to a stranger, should you wish to.
Submitted by Sarah Botterill on Tue, 15/12/2020 - 09:08
An ageing population, technology and a global pandemic raise challenging questions about tomorrow’s workforce said experts at the Future of Ageing Conference 2020.
“Across the G20, one in three workers is aged 50 and over and that is set to increase to four in ten in the next 20 years,” said Lily Parsey, Global Policy and Influencing Manager for the International Longevity Centre (ILC), the organisation behind the conference.
“I don't think anyone would question that we have a multigenerational workforce, or that intergenerational tension exists,” said Jodi Starkman, Executive Director of Innovation Resource Center for Human Resources hosting the online panel.
Covid-19, she said, has reignited a debate that competition for jobs will increase.
Covid-19, an opportunity for older workers?
The reality is that the pandemic – alongside advancing technology – has empowered people of all ages to work more flexibly from home.
“During the pandemic, more people are working from home, collaborating with people from across companies and geographies, interviewing, socializing and learning new skills, all enabled by technology,” said Starkman.
She added that it’s a myth older people can’t use technology. “It’s part of a workplace myth that older people can't use it [technology]. In reality, it is helping to democratize the workplace by supporting a wide range of employee circumstances and needs,” added Starkman.
“As Apple's 1997 commercial said, it’s time to Think Different.”
Fellow panellist Stuart Lewis, CEO of Rest Less, a digital community for the over 50s, agrees.
“The generation of someone turning 50 today is digitally native. There are over 12.5 million Facebook profiles over the age of 50. Jeff Bezos is in his fifties, Tim Cook leading Apple, touching 60, Tim Berners-Lee who invented the internet is in his mid-sixties, and has just gone into his new venture.”
“There is absolutely nothing around age and technology,” he added.
For FREE support using technology call AbilityNet's FREE helpline 0800 048 7642
Career planning in middle life
What technology can’t do is help people develop, and adapt their career paths as they age, said fellow panellist Lucy Standing of Brave Starts.
“I’ve just done a survey of the top 16 freely available career survey tools, and they will never work,” said Standing whose not-for-profit organisation seeks to provide older employees with career change programmes.
She points to the example of an African woman in her late forties who had never worked, who Brave Starts helped place on work experience with one of the UK’s leading fashion designers and now runs her own African fabric, design business.
Lewis similarly points to the fact that many careers peak in our forties and fifties.
“Most FTSE 100 company leaders are in their fifties and sixties. Many politicians are in their sixties or seventies, and those corporate leaders will look around the boardroom [and] see lots of, uh, experienced workers,” he said.
He added, “It is in middle management that ageism and age begin to bite.”
Brave Starts believes companies have a responsibility in this middle age to help employees to re-evaluate career paths and give them ownership to make a change. They run three-to-four-month programmes and arrange for people to spend time learning about jobs they may want to do before they quit and retrain.
“We find that 42% of the time people don't quit. They don't give up their job. But they do maybe drop down to three or four days a week so that they can work on a side hustle;18% do go on to do career change. Teaching, counselling, youth work.”
Standing advocates employers encourage employees, especially long-standing ones, to explore options. “There is a clear relationship between tenure and engagement in work. The longer you’re in a job, the more likely you are to be bored.”
Those options might be spending time in another department, which will in turn break down silos, or taking time out to explore other career paths. “Monzo is a great example of this. They give their employees 30 days off every single year to do whatever it is that they want to do next to build that next career. You can imagine what that probably does for their employee proposition,” said Standing.
She added, “It doesn't cost much money compared to expensive executive coaching leadership development coaching. And what do you also do?”
Innovating to tackle ageism in the workplace
ILC has launched a consultation paper to look at innovations designed to support an ageing workforce.
“Work for Tomorrow is a two-pronged approach; the consultation paper and international innovations competition, which will seek to identify and reward the most promising innovations in this space,” explained Parsey.
The consultation paper explores four key elements of an ageing workforce:
Maintaining good health
Building knowledge, skills, and competence
Addressing discrimination and supporting diversity
Adapting the workplace
Parsey explained the detail behind each of the areas, starting with good health.
“We know poor physical health, or poor mental health, is one of the key barriers[and] way too many of us drop out of the workforce early,” said Parsey citing caring responsibilities as a factor that contributes to mid-life stresses.
“In the context of an ageing society, we're much more likely to be providing care,” she said. “Often, we'll find ourselves with multiple caring responsibilities at the same time; you know, the term sandwich carers. We might be caring for a parent at the same time as caring for children. There has to be more flexibility because again, otherwise, we are just going to lose out on talent,” said Parsey.
There is also a need to tackle ageism, and to embrace technology.
“The pandemic is an accelerator in this space and has shown employers that people can be productive even if they're working from home,” she said.
How AbilityNet can help
AbilityNet supports older and disabled people to adapt technology.
For support from AbilityNet call our FREE helpline 0800 048 7642
Why technology companies need to adapt for seniors
Submitted by Sarah Botterill on Mon, 14/12/2020 - 11:23
Older people have embraced technology during the pandemic; now tech companies must embrace them, say experts at the International Longevity Centre’s (ILC) Future of Ageing Conference 2020.
Older people have turned to tech during the health crisis, figures from EY reveal. “People over 55 are using technology far more than they have in the past,” said Shaun Crawford, Global Vice Chair of Industry, EY.
The survey found that during the pandemic, 36% of all respondents had tried video calling for the first time. The adoption of online shopping had been highest among those over 65.
“Forty-five per cent of all households have used the internet more often for browsing; 41% have made more group video calls since the crisis began,” said Crawford.
One in five of over 65s have also increased the number of phone calls made.
Cross-generational communication needs
The need for communication has been heightened during this time of physical distancing. Older generations want to feel connected to grandkids.
“We bring families together through virtual playdates. So, we allow grandparents to read, draw, and play games in a video call with their grandkids, no matter how far apart they are,” said Maxeme Tuchman CEO and Co-Founder of Caribu.
“Grandparents are having the most difficulty with the pandemic, not being able to see their grandkids. We had a grandmother in Canada whose grandkids are in the US, and she was starting to get depressed because of the social isolation.”
Using Caribu, they were able to connect. “She said that Caribu lit up her world and that it was a game-changer for her and her family,” said Tuchman who says they have seen a ten-fold increase in usage of their app as a result of Covid-19.
The app has customers in over 100 countries.
Supporting people with tech in care homes
Technology also has a key role in connecting people in care homes, said fellow panellist Jisella Dolan Chief Advocacy Officer for Home Instead. “We know the importance of connecting with their families, their children, and their grandchildren, and the ability of our home care services and technology working together,” she said, adding “Our motto is 'relationship before task'.”
“Like everything in the world, we see the digitalization of our industry. We're testing models of delivering tablet-based care in the home. So, it's ways for people to do video chats, virtual chats, listen to music, radio, read about the news.”
AbilityNet volunteers offer FREE support on a range of devices. Call 0800 048 7642
Tailored solutions for older people
Both Caribu and Home Instead have learned the importance of technology adapting to the specific needs of older generations. Caribu works directly with older people and coined the phrase ‘Glam Mas’ to describe their typical service user.
“We had to meet grandparents where they were; they were on the web. They want to see things bigger, right? They want to have that full experience with their grandchild. The grandchild's running around with a phone, but they wanted on the web,” said Tuchman.
Caribu also needed to adapt its approach to customer support. “We had to install a phone number because we couldn't rely on the FAQ. We realized a lot of our grandparents didn't know the question to ask. They didn't know is it my router? Is it my Wi-Fi? Is it my operating system? They just didn't even know that those words existed,” explained Tuchman.
With GrandPad the technology that has adapted to the specifics of ageing, as Dolan explained.
“As we age, our skin on our finger changes so older people can struggle on an iPhone. [One of the reasons we work] with GrandPad is it has a set of ‘super seniors’ on their board in their eighties and nineties that inform them and pilot and test the GrandPad and get feedback.”
It’s not only the screen that’s an issue, but the super seniors also revealed that a long cable made it difficult to charge the device.
Caribu is similarly looking to build a panel of seniors to inform product development.
Are you designing a website or service? Our accessibility consultants can help with a range of services to ensure it is accessible to all.
Others would be wise to follow suit, said Dolan. “In the US, women in their 40s to 70s will manage most of the GDP of America for the next decade. So, if you're in business and offering services and products, you should probably be thinking about what they might want,” she said.
“Let's think about how we connect with seniors. And I would suggest do like GrandPad and bring in older people and bring younger generations in to connect with the older generations so they can empower and share as well.”
Submitted by Sarah Botterill on Sun, 06/12/2020 - 07:07
Older people in Wiltshire can get support through technology from a project dubbed Click and Connect, led by Age UK in partnership with AbilityNet and Wiltshire Sight.
The initiative sprang up after a survey of 200 people during Covid-19 revealed a large number wanted to learn to use technology better.
“We were aware that AbilityNet provides that help. Age UK brings the expertise of helping older people, increasing their incomes and all the other bits that we are good at. Still, if we partner with you, we will be able to support them in terms of their digital technology needs,” said John Truss, programme manager for Age UK Wiltshire.
The partnership is about supporting all a client’s needs, said John.
“What we're looking to do with Click and Connect is to work holistically to support the client. In this case, we have a clear view of what she wants to achieve, and we can support her to do that through AbilityNet. We’ll also be able to discuss her medical background and see if it's any help we can give, including maximising her income.
Local volunteer Myles Piling has already helped a lady with cerebral palsy to video-conference her family as a result of the partnership.
Age UK Wiltshire has also heard from someone who needed help with voice activation to enable her husband to record a diary following his stroke, and a woman recently widowed who needed help monitoring her bank account and utility bills online.
Also joining the partnership is Wiltshire Sight, which offers specialist support for people with Sight Loss and Visual Impairment.
Initially, the aim is to reach around 50 people who need support, but once the case is proved to seek a larger grant to support more people through tech.
Age UK is reaching out by phone and through its services team on the ground.
Technology has played a vital role in supporting people through the coronavirus crisis, with AbilityNet offering a series of FREE AbilityNet Live! webinars, including using technology to find local support in your area.
How smart tech helped a woman adapt to Multiple Sclerosis
Submitted by Sarah Botterill on Tue, 01/12/2020 - 08:43
AbilityNet volunteer Gordon Curry has used Alexa to lighten the load of a woman living with Multiple Sclerosis and confined to bed. Gordon, from Northern Ireland, configured the virtual assistant so that the client can now control multiple devices at home, such as changing the TV channels and controlling the lights.
“It’s difficult for most people to understand that walking across a room to turn off a light can be extremely tiring for some people that suffer from MS.” Says Gordon
The rewards of volunteering for AbilityNet
Gordon says part of volunteering for AbilityNet is the reward of seeing technology improve people's lives.
“I love being able to bring accessibility and ease into people’s lives, it’s the simple things that bring the most joy that the rest of us sometimes take for granted, like reading a book,” said Gordon who has been volunteering for AbilityNet for two years. “Things like this just make it so worthwhile,” he added.
AbilityNet has a network of over 300 people who give their time to support older and disabled people through tech. We offer support at home but during Covid-19 have adapted to provide telephone and remote support.
Gordon spoke to Aisling King who is also volunteering her time for free to support with marketing in Northern Ireland.
How AbilityNet can help
AbilityNet provides a range of free services to help disabled people and older people.
Call our free Helpline. We’re open Monday to Friday from 9 am to 5 pm on 0800 048 7642.
We have a range of factsheets that talk in detail about technology that might help you, which you can download for free.
My Computer My Way. A free interactive guide to all the accessibility features built into current desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
What does it take to build an accessibility network?
Tigger-like enthusiasm, being annoying, being cool and being a people-person are all some of the traits considered important by experts from the Department for Education, the BBC, and Skyscanner.
The accessibility leaders shared experiences in a session titled ‘Beyond the Lone Evangelist’ and chaired by Microsoft’s Hector Minto.
"I joined the BBC and was lured, slowly into the role. All of a sudden there I am in the accessibility team."
Similarly, Skyscanner’s Heather Hepburn “transitioned from a UX role into this wonderful role doing accessibility full time. I'm the only person in their organization in a permanent role in this,” she added.
It’s essential to build allies to accelerate change. “You don't get culture change unless you scale,” said Microsoft’s Minto. “I think the phrase is ‘If you want to go fast, travel alone. If you want to go far travel together,” agreed Andy Black, Business Change Manager and Accessibility Lead at the Department for Education (DfE).
“It's about finding new friends quite quickly [and] finding the environment that you can have those discussions with people. Having conversations is key”, said Turrell.
Policy is also a driver for change. “Everybody's a license fee payer; so, we have to make sure that everybody gets the same service.
“Policies create guidelines, those guidelines then need resources.”
Senior support is another important factor, says Hepburn. “We got the word accessible into the strategy. It's one word but that one word is just going to be life-changing. We can have conversations and ideas that we couldn't have had before. We can push training and start people building this into processes that stick”.
It’s also about changing attitudes. “We ran a few empathy labs,” said Hepburn.
“We simulated different disabilities and set tasks. Book a flight from here to here or find a hotel that's two kilometres from the city centre. Within minutes, if not seconds, the realization that this is quite hard, made people get on board.”
Black has reached out across directorates to build allies. “I've reached out into our tech directorate and our operations group to be accessible by default. We're Office 365 users, a big Teams user and we turned round to our colleagues and said want all the accessibility features turned on by default.”
Turrell started small. “I asked if somebody else wants to join a five-person working group where we can all chat about what's not working.”
Having mentioned the BBC’s champions network at an accessibility conference she is looking to create a network of networks and 120 organisations are looking to join.
Turrell says success means quiet from the outside, and lots of internal noise.
“License fee payers can complain as much as they want. If we're not getting any complaints that's great for us [although] we listen to every single one regarding accessibility and encourage people to tell us exactly what is going wrong.”
Internally, she wants noise about accessibility. “I'll do these catch-ups with people and I'll say, ‘tell me all the things that you don't like because then I can do something about it’. So, when you see almost 300 people on our Slack channel and everyone's having a conversation, loudness, then I know it works”.
The panellists have this advice to others.
Turrell said: “Raise the question, put your hand up at a meeting and ask, ‘have we thought about this?’” Keep going. Keep learning.”
Hepburn said: “Get people to hear it, get people to feel it and get people to do it.”
And for Black the message is simple: “Don't ever apologize about promoting accessibility and inclusivity. Let's get on with it.”
Unfortunately, we couldn't answer all the Q&A during the session and so here is a brief Q&A based on the questions that came through.
1. How do you define a victim?
The panellists discussed this question, and you can watch a recording of the webinar. It's a good question. Often, we don't know we have had personal information stolen, or have clicked on a link we should have avoided. As Katie Lips' from Which? Said, the best advice is to "trust your gut". If you're worried you make, have clicked on a fake banking email then find an official communication from them such as a printed bank statement and give them a call.
Also, to echo the advice from Sarah Sinden of Take Five, your bank would rather hear from you, so give them a call as soon as you have a cause for concern.
2. Reporting a scam is not made easy by the various organisations- I found lots of time that the various websites tend to pass you on to someone else if it not their "type" of scam.
You're right; it's a tricky area to navigate. If you think your financial information has been compromised then call your provider straight away.
Other useful contacts referenced in the webinar include:
Friends Against Scams: is the National Trading Standards awareness campaign. Become a friend by completing the awareness session online or watching the eight-minute scams video.
GetSafeOnline: is an authoritative resource for individuals and small businesses to help them stay safe, secure and confident online. The not-for-profit organisation has close ties with many police forces and MoD organisations.
Take Five: Take Five offers straight-forward and impartial advice throughout the UK to help everyone protect themselves from preventable financial fraud. takefive@ukfinance.org.uk.
3. I often hear this advice to check the English/grammar on emails. That’s really difficult for ESOL learners, any tips to help them?
What a great question. You could paste the text into a document such as Microsoft Word with a built-in spell check and see if there are lots of spelling and grammar errors. An easier spot might be that scammers will often use capital letters, and exclamation marks to create the sense of urgency we discussed in the webinar. If alarm bells are ringing, don't respond straight away.
Is there someone who can look it over for you? Is this someone who you'd normally expect communication from? If so, find an official number and call them. And, if it's an offer that sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
4. The scammers are now using geographical 01 numbers and mobile style numbers as well.
You're right. Scammers are incredibly sophisticated in their techniques. With a call, ask if you were expecting someone to call you? Do you have a relationship with them? You can always hang up and call back on a number you have. If they're the real company, they won't mind. If it's an unsolicited call and they are pressurising you to do something you're not sure about then politely hang up.
5. Does “Which” publish a newsletter?
As above, Which? has a scams alert newsletter you can sign up for.
6. I have worries about allowing remote access
This is completely understandable. The risk, however, lies not with the software but with the scammers who abuse this (as they do other available technology) as a way of exploiting vulnerable people. We do not stop using email because we may get a rogue one. AblityNet ahs had great success supporting people remotely using TeamViewer, for example.
As with the other tips, it's about whether the organisation is known to you and if you were expecting a call; if you weren't, alarm bells should ring.
Should someone call claiming to be an AbilityNet volunteer and you have any concerns then call our Helpline using the number on our website, and listed above.
None of our volunteers will remotely access your computer without your permission, and if you're not comfortable receiving support this way, we'll try and resolve the issue without it.
7. I've seen a lot of budget phones sold on amazon/EBay/wish running the likes of android OS; they have excellent specs for such a low cost. These phones have been delivered and in the purchases hand. Would you consider these phones to be a security risk as the software can be built into the OS and not be removed? And have you seen any issues like this?
I'd separate this question onto a few parts. In terms of buying second hand, it's a big market, and there are many legitimate sellers. On Ebay you can check feedback and sellers' ratings. By law, you have more rights buying from a company (many specialise in refurbishing technology) than you do in buying from a private seller and so you may wish to buy from a company trading on Ebay.
As mentioned in the webinar, don't be lured into paying by a means not recognised within the platform.
It's less prevalent now, but there was a time when lots of scammers lurked on Ebay and tried to get you to pay via Western Union and used this as a means to scam individuals. I'm not aware of phones being sold with spying or erroneous software on them, but they may be vulnerable if the previous owner was hacked.
Refurbished phones will probably be reset to factory settings, and if they aren't, we'd recommend you do this, yourself.
8. My computer skills are not good; perhaps that is why I over worry, and in my city, there is no provision for pensioners to get tuition.
AbilityNet volunteers offer FREE support to older and disabled people. Call our Helpline on 0800 048 7642 during UK office hours, Monday – Friday or contact us by email: mailto:enquiries@abilitynet.org.uk.
A tip from the Q&A
The Metropolitan Police have published an e-booklet which contains lots of good advice about specific threats and how to prevent them.
Learn how to win hearts and minds for accessibility
Submitted by Annie Mannion on Tue, 24/11/2020 - 13:10
Join our upcoming webinar aimed at higher education and public sector professionals - Winning hearts and minds for accessibility, taking place on Tuesday 1 December 2020, 1pm GMT.
Digital accessibility improvements don’t make themselves, so before you can be confident of establishing lasting accessibility practices at your organisation, you probably need to do some work on engaging staff with accessibility improvements.
Katey will explain her approach to rolling out accessibility training programmes, techniques for encouraging accessibility best practices, and how she drives enthusiasm for ongoing digital inclusion improvements across the university. She'll even share her 'Confessions of a digital accessibility coordinator', including defining what her H.I.T list is, and what on earth the 'Broccoli effect' is...
We will also provide an update on the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations (PSBAR) and how the government is monitoring compliance so far, and also find out some top tips to remember for video accessibility.
This webinar is for anyone working in the public sector, particularly those in a higher or further education setting, and those working on creating online content.
The webinar will last one hour and include a question and answer session.
All our webinars are recorded and this session's recording will be provided after the live broadcast.
AbilityNet provides a range of free services to help disabled people and older people. If you can afford it, please donate to help us support older and disabled people through technology
MW: Some of the texture in terms of the centres....
HM: The blueprint is very much focused on policy makers, politicians, and other stakeholders. We’re calling for three things. The first is a great digital catch-up on a mass scale. We're calling to halve the digital divide; 9 million people in the UK can't use the internet without help. 
Championing your cause is vital, Ford Williams says, “One of the first things I did is get permission to send out a division-wide email and just say, ‘I'm going to be in, in the boardroom this one lunchtime with a load of sandwiches and tea, and with no friends. I'd love to have a chat.’” 
Help relatives and friends unlock the power of their Android phones using Google's Action Blocks.
Setting up an action requires that you are reasonably comfortable with using a smartphone or tablet and most use cases assume that you will therefore be a person setting up the Action Blocks on behalf of someone who is struggling. 
As well as the use cases above, Action Blocks can turn your smartphone or tablet into a simple AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) device where buttons can be assigned words or phrases that can be read out-loud when pressed. You have a choice of a male or female-sounding voice, but both have American accents. The list of default phrases is:
She added that it’s a myth older people can’t use technology. “It’s part of a workplace myth that older people can't use it [technology]. In reality, it is helping to democratize the workplace by supporting a wide range of employee circumstances and needs,” added Starkman. 
Older people have embraced technology during the pandemic; now tech companies must embrace them, say experts at the 
The need for communication has been heightened during this time of 
Technology also has a key role in connecting people in care homes, said fellow panellist Jisella Dolan Chief Advocacy Officer for Home Instead. “We know the importance of connecting with their families, their children, and their grandchildren, and the ability of our home care services and technology working together,” she said, adding “Our motto is 'relationship before task'.”
Older people in Wiltshire can get support through technology from a project dubbed 
AbilityNet volunteer Gordon Curry has used Alexa to lighten the load of a woman living with Multiple Sclerosis and confined to bed. Gordon, from Northern Ireland, configured the virtual assistant so that the client can now control multiple devices at home, such as changing the TV channels and controlling the lights.
Tigger-like enthusiasm, being annoying, being cool and being a people-person are all some of the traits considered important by experts from the Department for Education, the BBC, and Skyscanner.
I'd separate this question onto a few parts. In terms of buying second hand, it's a big market, and there are many legitimate sellers. On Ebay you can check feedback and sellers' ratings. By law, you have more rights buying from a company (many specialise in refurbishing technology) than you do in buying from a private seller and so you may wish to buy from a company trading on Ebay. 
