Accessibility full circle: embedding inclusion in service design

Theme: Accessibility

For public sector services to be truly user-centred, accessibility must move beyond technical PSBAR (Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations) compliance and become a foundational part of end-to-end service design.

To bridge the gap between policy requirements and real-world citizen journeys, Registers of Scotland (RoS) partnered with User Vision to combine rigorous technical audits with task-based testing involving 10 citizens with visual, cognitive and motor disabilities.

This joint case study reveals the surprising disconnect between WCAG compliance and actual service usability. We will explore how complex legal jargon and poorly designed interactions break user journeys, and how combining internal advocacy with external expertise helped embed inclusive design across RoS’s multidisciplinary teams.

Participant takeaways:

• learn why public sector organisations must combine technical audits with user testing to understand how accessibility barriers actually break end-to-end citizen journeys
• understand how standard government language and legal terminology disproportionately impact neurodivergent citizens and assistive tech users, and how content and service designers can create better workarounds
• apply a systematic approach to identify and fix high-impact barriers first, combining WCAG data with real user insights to manage technical debt effectively
• discover practical techniques for empowering internal champions, breaking down silos between developers and designers, creating a sustainable culture of inclusive service design