We changed the question to make it clearer that we want users to let us know about any accessibility needs they may have when communicating with us.
What we changed
We changed the question from:
Do you have any special requirements when you communicate or use technology and/or online services?
To:
Do you have any access needs that we need to be aware of when we contact you?
We also changed the hint text below this question to explain how we usually get in touch and that this question is to allow users to let us know if they have an accessibility need which requires us to contact them in a different way.
We also rewrote the ‘special requirements’ label heading that appears in the case management system case details page so it’s consistent with the ‘Accessibility’ label we applied to this page.
Why we changed this
We’ve seen that users don't understand what is meant when we ask them to tell us about their special requirements.
This means that users either don't provide any information or don’t provide the right information.
We bet that if we make this question clearer users will provide an answer which will help us understand what their special requirements are and be able to make any reasonable adjustments.
Testing with users
We tested this with a few users by showing Figma prototypes, a couple of which were ones with access needs. Overall users understood what this question was for and why and how they needed to answer.
How it works
We changed the written content and hint text in this page but not the functionality of the ‘Yes/No’ radio buttons.
So when a user replies ‘Yes’ to this question, they’ll still be presented with a text box asking them fill in some details about their access needs. But we included an example of the kind of answer we need in the hint text.
In the CMS, a ‘Yes’ answer will now trigger a flag to the case management team that someone has asked for reasonable adjustments to be made.
When a user answers ‘No’, they’ll just be moved on to the next question as before.
Further considerations
This question and the flagging system in the CMS will need to be monitored by the digital and case management teams to check that the question is being answered the way we intended, and users are not struggling to reply.
We should also consider checking this alongside any accessibility audit work in the future.
Screenshots
Accessibility requirements question in the Request support journey
