Recent studies suggest that anything up to 7% of the UK population identify as feeling “digitally excluded” - meaning they don’t feel able to engage with certain digital platforms. The reasons vary, but can include:
- Digital infrastructure is not available to them
- Affordability of access devices
- Lack of basic digital skills
- Accessibility, usability or language
- Active choice to exclude themselves, driven by negative perceptions or experiences of a company’s position or proposition on age, orientation, race or gender
- Concerns about online safety
- Generational differences in perceptions of a company’s purpose, values and beliefs
Our inclusivity audit reviews your digital products and services and typically asks these questions in order to make recommendations for improvement:
- Does your organisation recognise the importance of digital inclusion?
- Is your organisation committed to digital inclusion?
- Are senior leaders (and those who scrutinise them) aware of the impact that digital exclusion can have on individuals?
- Has your organisation identified which individuals and groups of people are most likely to be excluded from digital services?
- Is your organisation balancing the need to digitise services at the same time as meeting the needs of digitally excluded people?
- When digitising a service, does your organisation understand and identify the specific barriers that may exclude people or groups of people from using that service?
- Has your organisation aimed to provide solutions or support for specific groups who might be more likely to be digitally excluded for example older people, people living in social housing, people living with long term health conditions or people living in rural communities?
- For each of your online services, is there an alternative, non-digital option for people to access?
- Is your organisation ensuring digital inclusion is built in as a standard consideration across all services?
- Do you have accurate and up to date data to understand the extent of digital exclusion from your services?
- Does the data help identify exclusion by different services, local areas or communities?
While considering the data, are there any gaps? How are you addressing these gaps?