Are you an accessible business owner? Are you all-inclusive to everyone in the community? How can you make your business more accessible to people who have low vision or are blind, and how will this benefit your business?
There are approximately 285 million people in the world who are visually impaired, 39 million of which are blind (World Health Organization, 2014). It is estimated that over 13 million Australians have one or more chronic (long-term) eye conditions, according to self-reported data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2017–18 National Health Survey (NHS). This includes:
7.2 million with hyperopia (long-sightedness)
6.3 million with myopia (short-sightedness)
1.4 million with astigmatism
687,000 with presbyopia (loss of focusing ability with age)
549,000 with colour blindness
411,000 with cataract
244,000 with macular degeneration
131,000 with blindness (legally & complete blindness).
What does accessibility mean?
Providing accessibility means ensuring everyone has the opportunity to access materials, as others with ability are able to. So, if you own a business, it's ensuring that all of the community, including those without abilities, can access all of your service. It's about making materials & services accessible, and after reading the above statistics, this would matters and make a huge difference to a lot more people than you may realise.
Think about how your business communicates information to its customers? Are there barriers? The business may not be intentionally applying barriers & excluding particular groups of people in the community, but this may be happening if you haven't considered making your business accessibility successful during the initial stages of development.
Often, a business can be inaccessible to people who are blind, or have low vision, because it's often overlooked. We live in a highly visual world where inaccessibility can be a problem if alternative formats are not provided. Does the business provide information in braille, large print or on audio tape for customers who have difficulty with standard forms of printed information? Businesses unintentionally make it difficult for people with visual impairments to be customers. However, providing accessibility is super easy to resolve.
What can we make accessible in our business?
Everything!
To ensure materials and services are accessible for customers who are blind or have low vision, materials will require professional formatting. For example, applying large print, braille, tactile images, readable PDF’s and using audio if necessary.
Some examples of materials may include menus, notices, invoices, contracts, maps, labels, banking forms, and health information forms, etc. People with visual impairments need to be able to access these just the same as everyone else. So, by not offering these documents in alternative formats, your business is losing potential customers, and profits.
So how can you make these materials accessible?
Documents are constantly used in businesses. Emailing your documents to Tactile Collective will enable us to provide your materials in alternative formats such as large print, braille, tactile graphics, PDF, and audio. As a community and as a business, we have a legal obligation to be accessible to those with disabilities.
The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (the Act) makes it unlawful to discriminate, in the provision of goods, services or facilities, against people on the basis that they have, or may have, a disability. It also makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person on the basis that one of her or his associates has, or may have, a disability (humanrights.gov.au).
The Act encourages organisations to develop Action Plans to eliminate discriminatory practices. Copies of these may be given to the Australian Human Rights Commission. An Action Plan is a strategy for changing business practices which might result in discrimination against people with disabilities. An Action Plan will help businesses to identify these practices and offer a blueprint for change. Developing and implementing an Action Plan will not only contribute to the elimination of discrimination against people with disabilities, it will also contribute to the success of your business by increasing the number of potential customers. Click here to access information on Disability Action Plans: A Guide for Businesses.
Accessibility benefits for your Company
When you give Tactile Collective the privilege to support your company, the benefits you will experience include:
Increased exposure to an underserved market
Optimized utilisation of your company’s services by current vision impaired customers
Increased spending on additional services by vision impaired customers
Your organisation will be adhering to the laws set forth by the DDA (1992)
People respect and seek out socially responsible businesses so advertising that you cater and you are inclusive to all will bring more customers in
It shows current and potential customers that the business has good ethics
If you're ready to make your business accessible for people who are blind, or have low vision, please email your materials to us at hello@tactilecollective.com.au so Tactile Collective can provide a free quote and guidance for appropriate alternative formats to make sure you reach all of your customers. Whether it's braille, large print, tactile graphics, accessible PDF or audio, we can do it!
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