Pat Charlesworth - consultant to Foundation of People with Learning Disability; District Committee member and Assembly Representative for Mencap; and Hackney Partnership Board member
 I have done some work with WordBank. I think it is extremely good for people who do not use spoken words as it will help them just by looking at the picture, and it has an audio button that you can press and it gives you the definition of what the word means.
I think that WordBank should be used on all websites so that I, as a person with a learning disability, should be able to go to the Web and get the information I need without having to wait for someone else to come with me.
Julie Howell - Digital Policy Development Manager, RNIB
 Initiatives that make the web easier for disabled people to navigate make the web easier for everyone to navigate. Congratulations WordBank for joining the effort to make the web better for everyone.
Derek Hill, parent of a child with profound learning disabilities and founder of Undercover (learning disability access, employment and consultancy project).
“Friday was a real eye opener for me. I've never seen such genuine consultation with people with learning disabilities before, and was hugely impressed by the way you and Lisa winkled out people's hopes and wishes.”
Catherine Sheppard - currently employed as a policy advisor for a housing association working with socially excluded people including people with learning disabilities
I am writing with reference to WordBank to recommend the service and the company to you as a person who has been working with people with learning disabilities over the past 17 years, the majority of whom were new users of IT and had literacy issues. WordBank invites people into the website and gives a clear indicator to the audiences that the site host takes access seriously. WordBank is easy to use, follows clear and consistent pathways to the information which is crucial for new IT users, people with literacy issues and the many people who lack confidence to navigate around a site and are 'turned off' by jargon or unfamiliar words. If you've ever had a go at breaking down complex concepts into clear and accessible explanations you will appreciate the definitions that WordBank offers with its clear supporting animations. A strength of this company is that each definition has either been developed with the input of the target audience or has been 'road tested' with people and amended following people's feedback. The company has an evidenced commitment to improving its service on a continuous basis and has a 'Can do' and 'Let's sort this out' approach which is solution focused, refreshing and a happy antidote to anonymous push button answer phone systems or phone operators so far removed from the design of the product that they can offer only rudimentary explanations and limited responses once the script has been exhausted. I can assure you from personal experience of working professionally for another organisation that engaged with this company that this won't be your experience here!
In short a good product, a company who are 'good to work with' and responsive to 'partners' and their target audiences with a commitment to continuous improvement and the social agenda for community inclusion for all including 'seldom heard' groups.
 Peter Lee Grys and Karl Seymour - Directors of Photosymbols
Our work is just one part of making things easier to understand for people - one tool out of many to support people to access things in wider communites. We are always looking for tools to help in our work and enable people to use emerging technologies.
Wordbank is one such tool, and one of the best we have come across. We are glad to be associated with it and believe it adds a new more accessible dimension to websites. The mixture of images, words and sound really helps get ideas across. As the list of words continues to expand, we predict it will become an invaluable resource for people with learning difficulties using the internet.
I wish we had thought of it ourselves! |
