Summary
Introductive question
Legal & General: made accessible: Why it matters to our business ? Why it should matter to every business ?
That are the questions we want to discuss and illustrate in this presentation
About Legal & General
Legal & General is one of the UKs top 50 FTSE companies and suppliers of financial services, including investments, insurance, life cover and pensions to 5.4million customers in the UK. The Legal & General Group is responsible for the investment of over £180 billion worldwide on behalf of investors, policyholders and institutions.
About Fortune Cookie
Fortune Cookie is ranked one of the top digital design agencies in the UK. Fortune Cookie puts accessibility at the heart of its design process and has secured RNIB See it Right accreditation for more of its clients than any other digital agency.
The business case
Legal & General knew that unnecessary barriers were preventing up to 8.6 million disabled people in the UK from using the companys website.
The company also knew that competitors offering accessible services online had a competitive advantage amounting to millions of pounds. (According to the Disability Rights Commission, disabled people have an annual spending power exceeding £80bn.)
Legal & General asked Fortune Cookie to entirely re-design legalandgeneral.com so that disabled customers could use it.
The challenges posed by disability legislation provided an excellent opportunity to improve the whole online customer experience. Legal & Generals intention was to maintain its position as a leading e-provider of financial services, by making its website accessible, easy to navigate and pleasing to use.
The design brief
Legal & General asked Fortune Cookie to plan and build an accessible, findable, usable and beautiful website.
There were three key elements to the project:
- 1. New templates had to be created and content had to be migrated from the old site to the new site. The look and feel of the site had to be consistent and brand-conformant. The site had to be accessible to search engines and to non-IE web access devices. New functionality had to be created for the frequently asked questions, complaints, general enquiries, and change of address sections.
- 2. The site had to be accessible to disabled people. It had to achieve the Shaw Trust, RNIB and Abilitynet accreditations for accessibility. The customer online application experience had to be improved.
- 3. The web editing facility would form the basis for ensuring accessibility and W3C WAI Level AA+ conformance.
The strategy
Fortune Cookie took a five-step approach to the re-design:
- 1.Audited the existing site using a combination of automated tools and user testing;
- 2.Got to know Legal & Generals customers and asked them what they needed and what challenges they faced;
- 3.Got to know customers habits using web analytics, help desk analysis feedback and Hitwise software;
- 4.Sought to understood customers needs. 3.2m Britons have difficulty using inaccessible websites; 6m have dyslexia; 1 in 3 is aged 50+; 3m speak English as a second language; 1.5m lack basic language skills; 5.2m adults have sub-GCSE level English;
- 5.Defined the benefits of the re-design. These included increased market share, increased profit, cost reduction and PR value.
