Building Inclusive Experiences: Profiles, Journeys, and Empathy Workshops

We applied our accessibility expertise to support Vodafone in advancing their accessibility goals. Vodafone is a leading telecommunications company in Europe and Africa. Vodafone’s aim is to connect for a better future, using technology to improve people’s lives and enable an inclusive, sustainable digital society. As part of this commitment, they wanted to make sure that they were not only on top of their accessibility obligations, but to ensure that accessibility was built into their design work across product teams, roles and markets.

Vodafone and System Concepts collaborated to research the experiences of customers with disabilities and access needs, to identify key barriers and areas for improvement. We embarked on a programme of research including a series of client collaboration meetings, accessibility audits, discovery user research, and an empathy workshop.

What our client wanted

The broad aims of the project were to:

• better understand customers with a disability, with a specific focus on customer needs and behaviours related to digital assistance along key customer journeys;
• bring the WCAG guidelines to life using real-world examples to illustrate the problems and barriers from the perspective of their customers;
• educate and motivate teams to engage with the accessibility of their products and services to ensure accessibility is not seen as a tick-box exercise;
• improve understanding of assistive technology and setting adjustments, and how these affect interaction with digital content and services; and
• increase awareness of how – by following accessibility best practices and testing with a range of customers – they stand the best chance of achieving access for all.

What we delivered

We applied our expertise to evaluate the interfaces against WCAG guidelines and best practice. To complement this, we conducted 1-to-1 user interviews with 13 participants recruited via our specialist database and charity connections, including people who are blind, have a vision impairment, mobility impairment, hearing impairment and/or neurodiversity. We combined the findings from the research and audit streams to bring the insight to life and help understand the impact of some of the issues customers face.

We collaborated closely with the Vodafone team to ensure we built on their in-house knowledge and were able to fill gaps with our expert insight.

A PowerPoint summary of key themes and customer characteristics was delivered to inform new personas and design principles, along with a series of profiles and journey maps to enhance understanding and identify gaps and opportunities for improvements.

Along with a detailed report that outlined issues related to each WCAG success criterion, we delivered checklists to keep track of changes, and screen recordings to illustrate how the issues play out in reality.

Following the user research and audits, we ran a workshop to engage a broader set of stakeholders. The aim was to improve buy-in and promote the benefits of accessibility testing and evaluation processes. We used participant summaries, customer soundbites and screen recordings from the discovery research and audits along with some simulators, to bring the insight to life and help build empathy and understanding.

The workshop included learning opportunities and hands-on activities, making use of simulation tools, browser plug-ins, assistive technologies and setting adjustments to help attendees understand the issues customers face. This included attempting tasks when unplugging the mouse and using keyboard only to navigate, increasing the text size, and changing the colours, as well as attempting tasks using vision impairment simulation glasses, screen reading software, and simulation gloves. Whilst these empathy tools do not 100% accurately simulate the full range of differences in impairments, they do help to illustrate the difficulties faced to better aid understanding; after all, it is hard to create solutions without first understanding the problems.

The results

The success of the project could be measured via a number of positive outcomes including:

• increased awareness of the diversity of customers and their needs. The powerful video clips helped to humanise and bring the insight and guidelines to life. Partnered with screen recordings of issues, this really helped to aid understanding of the issues and their impact;
• stakeholders were empowered to go and check aspects of their products and services to identify opportunities for improvement and areas where they can do more to better support customers with accessibility needs;
• the project helped to highlight the brilliant work that those working in accessibility are already doing, but also helped to embed accessibility across the organisation, by inspiring others to take responsibility. Stakeholders left the workshop educated, empowered and inspired to evaluate the accessibility of the products and services they are working on and share this insight with their team; and
• following the success of the project, we have started an extended programme to build on the research insights, to reach a wider audience of stakeholders within Vodafone to support their obligations related to the European Accessibility Act which is set to become law in all EU member states in June 2025. Inaccessible content and experiences can make someone feel disabled if they cannot use it, and Vodafone is committed to ensuring their products and services are accessible to their broad customer base and are working hard to achieve this.

Client testimonial

“It was a pleasure to partner with System Concepts to deliver Design Studio’s accessibility research and service design programme at Vodafone Group. Over the past year, we have closely collaborated with them to design the programme, conduct research, and implement findings to incorporate the views of users with access needs into our design and development process, ultimately, ensuring the My Vodafone app is usable, useful, and inclusive for everyone, regardless of ability.

System Concepts executed two rounds of discovery research to help us better understand user needs and characteristics, particularly when buying or upgrading a mobile tariff. This research was instrumental when empathising with our users and developing user personas and customer journey maps. They also led two rounds of accessibility audits and one round of user testing to identify successes and areas for improvement when adhering to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (AA standard) and when providing excellent user experiences for individuals with access needs.

Consolidating insights from these stages was crucial to share knowledge across the business and raise awareness of accessibility. System Concepts led an accessibility empathy workshop to achieve this, showcasing our learnings and building empathy through interactive activities. These activities enhanced understanding of the challenges users with access needs face when interacting with digital products and services. The workshop was a success and engaged over 100 stakeholders, with additional workshops planned to bring this insight to a director-level audience.

I have greatly valued System Concepts’ expertise across the various stages of our accessibility programme. They have always been open to our feedback and have worked collaboratively with us throughout our partnership. Special thanks to Mickela Perera, Catherine Earing, and Naomi Banks.”