We recently did research with users with access needs. The primary aim of this research was to understand how usable the Get Into Teaching website was for them. The research also gave us insights on how users with access needs felt about the representation of their lived experiences on the site.

What we learnt

At the time of the research, we only had 1 page about teacher training with a disability. It included information about financial support that trainee teachers with a disability or other health condition might be eligible for.

Screenshot of old funding and support if you're disabled page

We learnt that:

  • users struggled to find this content
  • when they did find it, it didn’t meet their expectations as it was limited to only financial support
  • some users did not identify as disabled, so would not engage with the content
  • users were disappointed that there wasn’t more content relating to their experiences

What we did

We started by improving the existing page on Funding and support if you’re disabled. This included:

  • changing the H1 to make it more inclusive of other ways users may identify
  • removing some outdated links
  • expanding the content to make it more meaningful and useful to users

Screenshot of the funding and support if you have a health condition, learning difficulty, or neurodiversity page

We then created a new page that focuses on adjustments that users could ask for in their journey to becoming a teacher. We placed this page in the Train to Teach section, to try to make it more visible to users.

Screenshot of new adjustments to help you train page

Finally, we added signposting to the updated and new content across the website. So for example, if a user is on the ‘What it’s like to be a teacher page’ and is concerned some elements may not be accessible to them, we have added some content that aims to reassure users that adjustments can be made and then signpost them to the new adjustments page for more information.

Screenshot of signposting to funding and support if you're disabled page. Screenshot of signposting to adjustments page

We were also able to add a video to both pages, where a teacher who’s deaf speaks about his experience of teaching.

What next

We’ll monitor quantitative engagement with the pages and how they perform in search engine results. Additionally, we’ll look for opportunities to retest the content with users and get qualitative feedback, as well as add more videos and images that increase representation across the site.

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