London 2012: Delivering the most accessible Olympics ever

London 2012 logo The organisers of the London 2012 event set out to deliver the most accessible Olympic and Paralympics Games in history. AbilityNet consultants worked with the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games' (LOCOG) new media team and an extensive network of suppliers to make sure their objective was fulfilled across every digital channel. That included the main websites, ticketing systems, apps, journey planners and much more.

  • Our advice at the start-up phase ensured accessible foundations for every project
  • We provided a rolling programme of testing during development
  • Our support and training ensured key suppliers met LOCOG's requirements
  • Nothing could go live until we had signed it off

How we worked

Meera Pankhania, was AbilityNet's Head of Accessibility Services at the time and describes the satisfaction of delivering such a high profile project to such exacting standards:

"This was a huge piece of work and everyone felt the pressure of the deadlines and the attention that such a high profile project brings. What made it work was that we built a great relationship with the key people at LOCOG - they showed the commitment to the highest standards of accessibility and we responded by delivering a huge range of specialist advice and support."

"As well as day-to-day contact with the LOCOG team we worked directly with many of their suppliers. LOCOG had very clear accessibility requirements in their contracts - a minimum of WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) compliance at AA level in every project, With A being the minimum level attainable."

"Although many of the designers and developers understood those requirements in principle they were working on new and often complex digital projects. We reviewed wireframes, shared code and best practise guidelines and delivered formal and informal training to ensure that their teams could deliver the technical standards that LOCOG required."

"As the event got nearer we began to understand the huge impact they have on people's lives and the global attention that they generate. Within AbilityNet I took responsibility for final sign off, which in most cases was the final step before a project went live. It was a great feeling seeing the work cross my desk and appear online to be used by millions of people."

The London 2012 website had 431 million visits over the course of the 16-day Olympic Games, with 4.73bn page views, 15 million downloads of apps and over 4.7m social media followers. During the Paralympic Games there were 30 million website visits from 9.5m unique users, over 220 million page views and 5.8m upgrades of the apps.

Speak to our experts

We offer tailored accessibility and usability support to clients from all sectors.

Speak to our experts about your project and we will advise on a bespoke accessibility strategy to meet your specific requirements.