AI for All - AI for All: Using AI to improve the accessibility of services

A keynote session for Manchester's Digital Strategy.

Join Chris Bush and Lee Valentine for their presentation on the importance of inclusive design in creating products and services that are accessible to all users.

They will highlight how AI can help remove barriers to accessibility and provides some examples of how organisations have successfully implemented inclusive design strategies for their own products and services.
The talk explores the potential of AI to open up new opportunities in this field and will introduce Nexer's own design principles for AI and the importance of building effective, equitable teams.

Key principles include involving real users, focusing on user needs, removing barriers, ensuring user control, maintaining transparency, ensuring quality and accuracy, adhering to ethical guidelines, supporting diverse interaction preferences, and complying with accessibility standards. These principles aim to ensure that AI technologies are developed and deployed in a way that benefits all citizens, including those with disabilities.

1. Hello we’re Nexer

2. Business Analyst Lee Valentine
Head of Design groupChris Bush
Your speakers for today

3. Design for all:
How AI can help enable innovation for inclusion

4. Thinking about inclusion

5. World Health Organisation
1 in 6
worldwide have a
long-term disability
1.4 billion people

6. Office of National Statistics
1 in 4
in the UK
have some form of disability
16 million people

7. Gov UK “When a mental health condition becomes a disability”, Equality Act 2010
a mental health
condition is
considered a
disability if it has a
long-term effect on
your normal day-to-
day activity.
Mental health
ability in
mentally demanding
areas: reading,
memory, attention,
language, complex
concepts, problem
solving
Cognitive
ability to
produce sounds
clearly, smoothly,
and understandably
Speech
ability to
feel and manipulate
a physical device
quickly, smoothly,
and accurately
Sensorimotor
ability to
perceive or process
auditory information
Auditory
ability to
perceive or process
visual information
Visual
Types of impairment

8. AI + Accessibility

9. Supporting inclusive ways of working
Improving the user experience

10. Inclusive design principles for generative AI
Involve real users
Focus on user needs and context
Remove barriers
Provide control
Design with transparency
Maintain quality and accuracy
Ethical and responsible use
Support different interaction preferences
Compliance with accessibility standards

11. Inclusive design principles for generative AI
Involve real users
Focus on user needs and context
Remove barriers
Provide control
Design with transparency
Maintain quality and accuracy
Ethical and responsible use
Support different interaction preferences
Compliance with accessibility standards

12. Focus on user needs and their context

15. Remove barriers

16. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leQegdK-1M8
Swindon Council (+ Experts by experience)

17. Support different interaction preferences

18. https://sites.research.google/euphonia/about/

19. Verboso

20. Maintain quality and accuracy.
Get real user feedback

21. Inclusive ways of working

22. How we make
working inclusive
at Nexer

23. •Developed resources to
educate about LGBTQIA+
inclusion
•Organised charity event for
#StillProud
•Show and Learn for
International Pronoun Day
LGBTQIA+Still Proud
•Creating awareness
and increasing cultural
intelligence
•Improving diversity in
leadership roles
•Helping colleagues to
participate in cultural events
Cultural and religiousC.A.R.I.N.G
•Published guidance on
inclusive meetings
•Early research on M365 Copilot for
disabled and neurodiverse
experiences
•Delivered accessibility awareness
sessions to colleagues in Sweden
DisabilityAccess @ Nexer
Employee Resource Groups

24. Sharing personal experiences and challenges
Supportive environment with respect for diversity
Access needs and preferred communication methods
Manual of Me

25. Neurodiversity awareness and communication training
Good Practice for Hearing Loss in meetings
Neurodiverse Ways of Working Field Guide
Lived and learned experiences

26. Sharing knowledge
across our teams

27. Recognisingand overcoming
barriers

28. •Real-time captioning and transcriptions enabled
•Recaps of meetings using transcriptions
Provides text versions of his meetingsand use Copilot for analysis
•Catch up and gain insights from videos
Helps isolate key information from long recordings
•Meeting summaries and note generation assistance
Helps them catch up without needing to read/write extensive meeting
minutes
•Attribute contributions to specific speakers
Helps them recognise each individual contributor and follow
discussions more effectively
How Copilot can help Liam
•Cannot watch video without subtitles / closed
captioning.
•Cannot participate in remote or hybrid meetings
without captioning or transcriptions.
•Cognitive load from note taking can lead to missed
information.
•Challenges in following different perspectives
discussed in meetings.
•Difficulty in recognising who said what during meetings.
Barriers / Difficulties
Liam has a hearing impairment and uses lip reading and captioning for
communication.
Liam is a skilled business analyst with expertise in analysing data and
creating accessible digital solutions.Business AnalystLiam

29. Let’s use technology to break down barriers,
and design to include everyone, ensuring equal
access and opportunities for all.

30. UK National AI strategy
Council using AI to
help people with
learning disabilities
Designing generative AI to work for people with disabilities
Opportunities for AI
in Accessibility
Microsoft inclusive design
Nexer’s inclusive design principles for AI
Useful resources

31. Any questions?
[email protected]
[email protected]
THANK YOU