Claire Millross, AbilityNet's Volunteering and Free Services Administrator, explains the impact of invisible illnesses on her life

Invisible Illness Awareness Week (8^th-14^th September 2014) may be an American thing but I for one will be doing my best to take part, in even just one small way. Why? Because like so many of us in the UK, I have an invisible illness. Well, actually, I have 2 invisible illnesses - firstly I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and more recently I have been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Although I would consider myself to look as normal as most people, I am in constant pain and suffer with fatigue all the time.

This is why I do what I do in my work at AbilityNet. I have experienced the frustration of being too unwell to seek help when my computer breaks down - the gadget I rely on for everything from clothes shopping to keeping in touch with friends. I therefore feel great empathy with the clients I am helping - while I may not be physically able to help them myself I know that by working for AbilityNet I am doing my bit, however small.

Invisible Illness Awareness Week started in 2002 when Lisa Copen, founder of restministries.com saw so many people who felt misunderstood by everyone. She decided that everyone with a chronic illness could do with validation that their feelings were normal. And so Invisible Illness Awareness Week was launched and since then it has gone from strength to strength.

Sometimes with an invisible illness it can feel to onlookers like we are pulling the wool over their eyes but take it from one who knows, we aren’t. When we smile and laugh and seem to be enjoying ourselves, it is not because we’re not in pain, instead we smile and laugh and enjoy ourselves despite the pain.

So what do those of us with an invisible illness need?

We need understanding and acceptance. We do not need to be made to feel like we have to prove ourselves. And most importantly, we need functional tools to enable us to lead our lives as fully we can - and one such tool is our computers. This is where we at AbilityNet can help.

If you have an invisible illness and your computer is not working, please give us a call on our Freephone helpline 0800 269 545 and we will do our best to help.

For more information please see:

• Fibromyalgia and Computing - AbilityNet blog September 2014
• www.invisibleillnessweek.com
• www.ehlers-danlos.org
• www.fmauk.org

The headline finding of our recent report into digital accessibility in the travel industry was that businesses could do a lot more to improve the accessibility of their websites and help disabled people book their holidays. There at least 1.1 billion disabled people on the planet, with a combined spending power in excess of $4 trillion. Even diluted across different industries, that’s a sizeable base of potential customers and revenue.

The changing environment of accessibility

The London Paralympics did much to encourage awareness of the broad spectrum of disabilities and to redefine what ‘disabled’ means in the public sphere. At the same time, the increasing desire for mobile technology means that features that would once have been seen as accessibility bolt-ons have become essential, for example mobile users are often 'temporarily disabled' in bright sunlight or when using their phone one-handed whilst walking, or hands-free whilst driving.

Getting ahead of the competition

As this example shows, accessible design offers an opportunity for any business to respond to customer needs and gain a competitive advantage.

Anyone in a global, highly competitive industry such as travel and tourism needs to take every opportunity to stand out from the crowd. It is also an industry that has started to recognise the market opportunities in catering for disabled customers, with many catering for their needs when travelling and providing specialist facilities in their destinations. This is especially true for those sectors that target older customers - such as cruise companies that provide extensive facilities on board and are careful to design their ships to cater for older customers.

However they aren't so careful when it comes to making sure that their website is accessible - which means some of their potential cusotmers won't be able to browse their site or make a booking.

Our accessibility team recently conducted tests on some of the biggest sites of the UK travel industry and their research shows how badly they are performing when it comes to accessibility. You can read the full report and review the findings in more detail in our e-Nation Report.

The travel industry is a highly competitive, billion dollar industry where a small change in market share can mean a massive uplift in revenues. Knowing that your competitors are performing poorly in a particular area offers a huge opportunity to reach new audiences and provide a much better service.

AbilityNet’s Head of Digital Inclusion, Robin Christopherson points out that a niche subject like accessibility can offer huge gains for any business that takes it seriously. “It’s a very neglected area that can have a massive impact. Following the accessibility guidelines (WCAG2.0) is the quickest way to get a competitive edge because your competitors are doing so poorly.”  

By improving the accessibility of their website and other digital content, any one of these companies could expand their customer base and earn millions in increased revenue in the process.

To find out more about the business case for accessibility, you can watch this presentation by AbilityNet's Mark Walker.

Getting on the first page of Google results is the holy grail for SEO, but many web designers and marketers don’t realise that optimising their website for accessibility will help achieve their goal. 

Search engines are central to the way we browse the web, which is why Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is vital for businesses across the world. For many of us the way Google produces the results is akin to magic, but for the SEO industry it is a moving target, always evolving and requiring constant attention on your website and in the network of online content that feed Google's robots or spiders, that constantly scour the web.

Like any search engine Google's 'magic' is built upon powerful algorithms that evaluate the data collected by the robots and decide which page provides the 'best' answer to any given question. The SEO industry is built on an understanding the rules that govern that algorithm - and those of other search engines - so that you can optimise what you present to the robots and reach the front page for those terms that relate to your business or service.

There are all sorts of ways of achieving this, and the SEO business has a chequered history. Although many agencies behave ethically and work hard at producing high quality content, each iteration of the search engine algorithms brings a fresh wave of tricks and dodgy practices designed to push specific results up the rankings.

Google's goal is to make sure that only the best, most relevant content is linked on its results page. That's why it each update seeks to weed out the worst examples of so called Black Hat SEO, such as building automated websites that generate spurious links to content, or stuffing alt-text and other meta-tags with endless streams of keywords. 

Some of the most recent changes are more subtle, however, such as penalising the use of guest blogs. Although the use of guest blogs isn't, of itself, an unethical practice, it has become a common tactic employed by SEO professionals to circumvent previous Google iterations. Some sites that rely on links to connect within their network will lose rankings - innocent bystanders in the ongoing cat-and-mouse games that characterise SEO.

Optimising for SEO and accessibility

However things are now reaching a point where only the best practice in content creation are likely to succeed. In a recent AbilityNet webinar on the subject, Gerry White of digital agency Site Visibility explained that best practice for SEO now reflects best practice for accessibility.

As he said, "Making your web content accessible to all will make it available to the widest possible audience, as well as making it work harder for SEO purposes. Google's changes increasingly put the focus on what you can do on your own site, to make the content as transparent and accurately described as possible."

One of the key threads in the webinar was how Google’s algorithm changes are geared towards serving its users with the best content to answer their queries. Optimising for accessibility does this by allowing users with accessibility requirements to fully access content on your website, reducing the risk of them bouncing out of your site - negatively impacting your site in the eyes of Google - and increasing the chances of retaining them as a customer.

Robin Christopherson, AbilityNet's Head of Digital Inclusion, also used the webinar to explain in more detail some of the best practice for alt-text and other tagging.

"This is really about quality over quantity," he explains. "You don't need to stuff a site with keywords if you are clearly labeling your content. Thinking about the needs of someone using a screen-reader, for example, is a great way to describe the content and will also be lapped up by the Google robots who scour the web."

Find out more about how accessible design helps SEO by viewing the recording of our SEO and Accessibility webinar (60 mins) - or read the full transcript.

You can also view our recent webinar about accessible alt-text and read the blog by Senior Accessibility and Usability Consultant Stefan Sollinger outlining how to ensure your alt-text is correctly optimised. 

So it's summertime and as the song goes, the living is easy. But is your holiday reading easy? Of course it's great to read books while sitting in the sun. What happens though if you're unable to physically hold a book and read it. Or, perhaps you've got some literacy issues.  What are the other options? With the advent of tablet computers and smartphones it's never been easier to read electronic publications.

Now I have to say that I'm a bit old fashioned and actually like reading books as opposed to reading electronic publications. But last year I joined the real world and bought myself an e-book reader. It's cheap but it does what I want it to do.

Hang on a miniute though.  Some of you might have issues with the smaller size of the print on an e-book reader. No problem. On most if not all devices you can change the size of text so if you have a visual impairment you can change the size of the print. If you need text to be different colours you can make that simple change too.  If you find changing the background colour to be useful you can easily do that if you need to.

Everyone knows that if you have dyslexia, reading can be difficult.  No problem if you have the facility to convert that text into speech. You can listen to your book being read out.  Just remember to plug those earphones in so you don't annoy anyone!

We've written a factsheet all about electronic publications. It's available from our website: http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/factsheet/electronic-publications-0

How can we help?

AbilityNet helps disabled people use computers and the internet at work, at home and in education. There are a few ways that we can help:

• Call our free Helpline. Our friendly, knowledgeable staff will discuss any kind of computer problem and do their best to come up with a solution. We’re open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm on 0800 269 545.
• Arrange a home visit. We have a network of AbilityNet ITCanHelp volunteers who can help if you have technical issues with your computer systems. They can come to your home, or help you over the phone.
• We have a range of factsheets which talk in detail about technology that might help you, which can be downloaded for free. 
• My Computer My Way. A list of free hints and tips that you can use to make your time on the computer that bit easier. http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/mcmw/

I've just done a webinar on a subject that's close to our hearts at AbilityNet, which "How to change your computer accessibility settings without spending money". It was a great success. After all, no-one likes spending money if they don't have to, do they?

I always try to refer people to My Computer My Way as it gives you easy step by step advice on what to do. It's our flagship resource that we like to shout about!

Need help with slowing down the keyboard response rate? Need help adding tails to your mouse cursor to make it easy to see? You can do all this and more at My Computer My Way.

Hang on moment! What if you have a mobile device or an Ipad or an Android device?  No problems, My Computer My Way covers the latest systems for all Apple, Android and Windows devices. 

It's your computer. You can change it so it meets your requirements. Our detailed guidance will give you the appropriate skills to change the way that your computer works, just for you. 

Find out more:

• Use our factsheets to learn about specific adjustments that may help you.
• Or check the recording of our webinar from 1 July 2014 for more details about what adjustments may be relevant to you or the people you support.
• And if you ever have any questions about adjusting your computer you can call me on our free helpine on 0300 180 0028.

Alex Barker, Advice and Information Officer